'Good luck selling air': Retail workers instructed not to stock storefront shelves, they comply despite knowing it will affect sales, resulting in a dispute with management

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Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
May 24, 2025 1:00 PM EDT

Being a retail worker, even just for a little while, will always supply you with a lesson or two about business management. When the main objective is selling specific items, business owners would do anything to make the profit they are after. To do so, there are many tactics that different companies use, and some work better than others. 

The easiest example of that is the discounts and deals. 'Buy 2 Get 2 Free', '50% discount on baking products on the weekend', etc. These tactics are meant to lure shoppers in, get the stuff they came for with the discount, and then buy a lot more products because they are already there, might as well…

Another known tactic is the placement of different kinds of items. Many stores put the items they want to get rid of the most right at the front of the store. Showing it to people first thing, so they would be more curious to buy it. That little piece of real estate at the front of any store is really valuable, and it would be foolish not to use it to the full extent. 

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  • Did the management in this story act foolishly when they instructed workers not to stock the storefront for Mother's Day decorations? Probably, but it still happened, so keep scrolling to read the full tale.

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    Molixana "Our sales had dropped significantly" 2-12 02. SACS NO
    via WeStarMoney Rec

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    You don't want us to fill empty shelf space? Good luck selling air...

    Years ago, I worked for a medium-sized retailer which sold all sorts of things, from confectionery to garden supplies. The store had half an aisle near
    via MaddieGator
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    the front of the store dedicated to events, which were pretty much right in the customers' faces as they entered the store.
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    Every few weeks, these event shelves would change over to a new department, or be themed to any upcoming holidays or special days, such as Mother's Day or Halloween.
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    Usually for these events, we would get the stock delivered the week before, and spend that week taking out the old stock and replacing it with the new
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    lines. If a new line was missing from the delivery, we'd go and find a different line that would fit into that event from elsewhere in the store.
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    One day in early April, we received an email from upper management: "Do not replace missing event lines with any other lines."
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    We emailed back to clarify, because of course, nearly every event delivery is missing at least one line. Do they want us to spread other items out to fill the empty space, or what?
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    50 25 69 SL.09
    via alisa24
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    "Just leave the space for any missing lines empty. It will look like they have sold out." Barely a month later, while preparing for the Mother's Day event, we receive our
    via MaddieGator
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    regular delivery, with no Mother's Day event lines - not one. So we email upper management to let them know that we haven't received any of the event lines.
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    "They will come on your next delivery. Do not fill empty space." Well, they did not arrive on the next delivery either. We emailed them again,
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    informing them that we had still not received any event lines, and heard nothing back, so we decided to do exactly what they asked. We cleared out the old event
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    lines, and left the entire event section completely empty, for the entire 3 week period leading up until Mother's Day.
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    After Mother's Day, during a conference call (a group call between upper management and all the store managers for the region), they asked us why
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    we had zero sales for the event lines, and why our sales for the period had dropped significantly. We just referred them back to other previous emails
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    where we told them that we never received the delivery, and they had said not to fill missing lines. Cue the most deliciously sweet awkward silence.
    via MaddieGator
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    After the call, one more email was sent out to everyone: "Please use your best judgement when filling missing lines for events."
    via MaddieGator
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    MaddieGator OP I was reminded of this, because upper management have come up with a "brand new idea" over the last couple weeks, which should hopefully increase demand and sales...
    via MaddieGator
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    They don't want us to fill missing lines again. We haven't bothered to remind them of what happened last time ③
    via MaddieGator

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boss workplace-stories employee manager job malicious compliance retail tales-from-the-workplace retail worker reddit story workplace Reddit company funny store
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