ANNOYED BY HAWKERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18578, 28 September 1928, Page 9

ANNOYED BY HAWKERS.

To the Editor. Dear Sir, —I can sympathise with all the housewives who have been pestered with hawkers. Most of the letters in the “ Star ” have given the poor hawker a bad time. Taking " Annoyed No. 2’s” experience for granted, one would imagine that most hawkers must be rough, rude, uncouth fellows who are out to annoy the housewife. Why should this be so? I have yet to see the business man or housewife who is really pleased to see a salesman call. You see, none of us like to be sold; this makes what the expert calls “sales resistance.” It is the inability of the hawker to get past this sales resistance that wears down his nerves, and leads to exasperation, with the results mentioned by “ Annoyed ” and others. But, on the other hand, really nice people can give the salesman or hawker a bad time of it. After years of experience in shops and calling on homes, I’ve come to the conclusion that nearly all the housewives’ worries with the hawkers and inattentive shop assistants are entirely due to their own ignorance of how to treat them. If the housewife dealt with the hawkers And the shop people in the spirit of, “ Do unto others as we would be done by,” there would be no letters in the “ Star ” complaining of the rudeness of callers, and the hawkers would have no complaints of the rudeness of housewives I—l am, etc., SIMPLE SALESMAN.