In the dark when you buy?

When I was young and naive, I thought that the 'Ghost Train' and the 'Haunted House' were scary places to go into, when the travelling Fair came to town.  Now I have a brand new benchmark for intimidation.

Yesterday, in pursuit of that perfect Christmas present for my wife's niece, we ventured into 'Hollister', the clothing store where the young, hip and trendy hang out, apparently nurturing premature deafness and sight impairment.

For those who have, as yet, not experienced the blackout that is the Hollister Shopping Experience, it is worth observing that even with this helpful advance warning, nothing will prepare you for the sheer awfulness of your first visit.  It reminded me of a scene from the Alien II blockbuster, as one shuffles around in a kind of stygian darkness, relieved occasionally by a subdued light focused on a single item of clothing.  There were times when one could almost imagine the deadly alien foe uncoiling its lethal body behind a shadowy display of overpriced hoodies, ready to pounce - or at least charge one for the privilege of fumbling nervously with children's clothing in the dark.  Which, as I write about it, feels like a very strange thing for an adult male to be doing.

The powers-that-be at Hollister do not, however, consider turning their shops into an ill-lit catacomb, where it is almost impossible to verify the colour of a garment (at least not without staggering blindly out of the front door into the light, thus triggering the security alarm), to be a sufficient hindrance to informed shopping.  Oh no.  The unwary shopper is blasted with music at a volume which makes most rave events seem tame by comparison.  The combination of this assault on one's eardrums plus the optical challenge of identifying whatever it is that one is holding (is it sweatshirt?  Is it a soft furnishing?  Oh no, it's a shop assistant) creates within one a kind of panicked desperation to buy something, anything, in order to escape back into the real world.  One willingly parts with an astonishing amount of money for what is a remarkably ordinary sweatshirt, as this is the price one pays for freedom.

And freedom never tasted so good.  Blinded by the sunlight (all things are relative in Wales), one stands there gasping, trying to cough out the remnants of the ghastly Hollister perfume that appears to be squirted out of little sphincters in the wall, and clutching in one's shaking hands a garment that is at the same time profoundly disappointing and yet in a strange way, quite precious.  And, in an uncharacteristically perverse moment, I found myself wanting such retailers to be regulated.

For, what Hollister does to its customers seems the exact reverse of everything that we have in recent years been endeavouring to build for our clients.  Customers (or 'consumers' a la FSA-speak) are literally forced to buy in the dark.  I am not sure that the products are particularly good value - but in any case, the circumstances of one's purchase makes it impossible to determine very much at all about the item.  I would imagine that most people are shocked when they get their acquisitions home and discover what the real colour is - which in financial services' terms takes us back to the bad old days of the 1980s.  Expensive products which we discover are not quite what we thought they were, and which we purchase through a sales process which forces us to make poorly informed decisions, as we are intentionally deprived of key items of information, or subtly pressured into the 'buying decision'.

Thank goodness, that's not where we are now.  ValidPath Members have access to some of the best-value financial products in the UK, where every key facet of those products is available for scrutiny in the clear light of day, and where the tools are available to ensure that they 'fit', that they are absolutely right for the client concerned.