SHOPKEEPERS’ DISCOURTESY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25562, 15 June 1944, Page 6

SHOPKEEPERS’ DISCOURTESY

Sir,—"All British ” writes on the sub--1 ject of politeness by shopkeepers. Whiie admitting that there are a few shorttempered shopkeepers, we are. as a whole, polite and obliging. I have been in business six years, and I have found that being continuously polite is an impossibility. I think that people who go to such lengths as to write to the paper about such a trivial matter should observe the manner in which they ask a favour. We object to being ordered to perform a certain favour. Moreover, it would not be fair for one person to get all the big apples. The Chinese in question was most probably trying to be fair to all his customers. When there is an increase of price or a shortage of goods, the public seems to think that it is the shopkeeper s fault, with the result that we have to put up with many insults. While each customer thinks that he is the only one who requests favouritism, a shopkeeper who has hundreds of customers with not enough goods to supply them all has an unenviable job in trying to sort out his best customers in order to be fair. I would, therefore, ask “All British ** and the New Zealand public to think of the problems of the shopkeepers and try to help them at present and not make their job harder. —I am, etc., O ne of Them. Dunedin, June 14.

Sir,—l fully sympathise with ‘ All British ” in her experience at a city fruit shop. I have always known that one cannot buy the goods displayed in many of these shops. Those one purchases are always taken “from the back,” and always inferior. Splendid goods art displayed outside • the shop, but when one goes m to buy one is offered something very different and inferior, and it’s take it or leave it. I have felt for a long time that something should be done about, this. We have inspectors for all' kinds of other things. Why not “for this?—l am. etc., Dunedin, June 14. , True British.