I manage a place that sells ice cream and has an attached gifty/grocery type store (all one business). We get to see quite a few parents who let their children do whatever they want.
I literally had a kid using the wall to do a flip on the chairs, he was between 8 and 10 years old!
Not long ago, we had a parent walk away from their child to shop, and the kid opened up a Styrofoam cooler (that was merchandise to be sold) and got inside and started stomping around in it. He left dirty shoe prints and dents in the cooler, and it was no longer in sell-able condition. The cashier at the time told the kid that it wasn’t a toy, and to get out, and parent came back over. No additional action was taken, not sure if the mom apologized or not.
Today I came in and found a busted bag of rice with a note saying that “a kid dropped it”. I have no additional details on that interaction.
My question is, how do we hold these parents responsible for their children’s actions? Do we post a “You break it, you buy it” sign and request that customers pay for any damaged product while they are in the store? Does this hurt customer relations?
TLDR, parents let their kids run loose, and damage products, should we hold the parents responsible for these products, or would it hurt our customer relationships?
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I think a sign of some kind is appropriate. If the customer is a person with good intentions, the sign won’t put them off.
Have you heard of Shrink? That’s what we use.
I think you’re being reasonable
Do the parents come in to buy ice cream for their kids?
If so, don’t piss them off.
How childproof is your ice cream shop? I understand wanting parents to manage their kids better, but if you can’t get them to manage their kids, you won’t be able to get them to pay for merchandise. So in lieu of that, what can you do to keep easily-damaged or expensive things out of the reach of kids?
I think all the commenters are coming off as assholes, telling you it’s just cost of doing biz. However, I have to ask - you only have 2 examples of damaged merch, and 1 was rice. Is this really an issue so far? I do think behavior like doing flips can lead to injury and lawsuit, so gotta stop that.
1 thing that isn’t clear- is this like a tourist boutique or like a tiny family store? Could change recommendations, I’m definitely confused on how this behavior is happening.
I have a short term rental.
I had a recliner that a kid broke trying to get off it while it was extended. They said it got stuck which I think was believable as a quick google search told me thats a common issue. In that case I just had it fixes and considered it a cost of business.
But I also had someones kid spill milk the carpet. I 100% made them pay for the cleaning.
I worked at a pet store that had this policy as nothing that could be broken was cheap (aquariums, animal hides, etc). We had a sign. Initially I thought it was tacky but it generally worked out. People would bring broken crap up all the time to pay for it. I never enforced the policy though, I know that’s probably the group that it should be enforced for, rather than people willing to admit they broke something. But I was just a high school kid at the time. We also discounted it like 20% whatever that’s worth.
Shrinkage is part of business whether it is theft, vandalism, spoilage etc. You should be able to cover some loss and remain profitable.
You can have a policy about unattended kids but forcing a parent to pay for something you believe their child messed up may be challenging and not worth the end result.
I’d ask the owner if they really want their employees to confront customers over these situations.
It will not damage your relationship with the customers who actually buy things. The idlers who walk through your gift shop and let the kids go wild are not the people who spend money, at least not most of it.
So please! Tell little mommy that her asshole ruined some product and charge her for it. Respectfully of course, but yes ma’m, this product is ruined, and it’s your responsibility to cover the loss, just like any other accident. And no ma’m, I do not have insurance that covers you letting your spawn run wild and tear up my store.
I got 2 young kids, if we go into a store and one of them happens to damage goods I buy it, I’ve never even paid attention to if it’s policy it just feels like the decent thing to do. My opinion may not hold much weight because I work small business as well but I feel like it’s not out of line to ask to cover the cost of damaged goods
Personally when I go into a business and there are signs suggesting how I should behave, “you’re on camera” or you break it, you buy it, I become a timid customer and get a negative vibe. As a result I probably won’t engage as much with employees or even buy as much as I had planned. Sending such messages hurts a business more than helps it. If you want repeat customers, you will need to be aware of their level of comfort and their experience while there. Breakages, petty theft and damages are the cost of doing business. If there are high-priced items that are the brunt of the problem, you need to do a better job of placing/protecting them. As for holding parents responsible for their kids behavior, good luck.
Make parents chain kids to a pole outside the store. Parents want to let their kids act like animals, treat the unruly crotch demons like animals.
In grade 3 or 4 my class was taken on a felid trp to a very nice nature preserve, Well before we went in, the teacher decided it would be a great idea to lead a class full of dummies through the optics store so she could grab some camera stuff.
The trouble maker of the group waited for his time to shine, once the teacher was distracted we all hear a loud smash and a scream, The dummy decided to climb up on a glass display case, inside the display case was some binoculars worth over 8k in 1990s money… Pretty sure dummies parents had to pay up.
oh and the kid had to go get like 40 stiches. ruined the whole trip for everyone.
I think that this is all but unenforceable. In my area shop owners cannot have a policy like this. It’s a cost of doing business.