Lesson from the Kiosk Girl

For anyone who hasn’t been to Denver, the area is covered with an abnormal amount of art stores, overpriced salons, and posh malls. As with any mall in any normal town, the mall corridors of Denver malls are covered with trendy teenagers, but in Denver the kids look like they are strutting the latest fashions down a catwalk on Milan. The Denver malls seem to also have a propensity for unnaturally beautiful people. Is it possible these kids have all had cosmetic surgery and the moms escorting them through the mall got some kind of two-for-one deal at the plastic surgeon’s office? Anyway, the point is that the mall can be an intimidating place to be for a normal average Joe in Denver.

Recently my daughter and I were walking through one of these malls, just trying to hurry because my daughter does not share my interest in shopping so I was losing her attention quickly, when we were stopped by a hair flattener sales girl at one of those kiosks in the middle of the mall. I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, I am not someone who is easily swayed by solicitors and have never actually stopped for one of these people before. Of course, this girl also looked like something straight out of Milan, so it is quite possible she was intimidating enough to convince me with just a glance that if I stopped I had some potential of looking like her when she was done with us; therefore, when she asked if she could show me something on my daughter, I just said “Yes” without hesitation and I still can’t figure out why I did that. Anyway, the point is that she was a natural sales person.

The sales girl was selling these ceramic hair flatteners called Herstylers for exorbitant prices. Don’t get me wrong, they were very cute with different shades of pink, purple, apple green and more. Oh, and I guess they worked well too. The sales girl sat my daughter in a chair, curling her hair with this skinny flattener, and in 5 minutes my daughter looked like some blond blue eyed child model. As an added bonus, my daughter loved the extra attention and spent the rest of the day flipping her hair about like the princess that she thinks she is. So, at the very least, the sales girl helped me extend my whine-free shopping experience a little bit longer. My daughter barely noticed she was shopping while she enjoyed looking at herself in the giant mirrors in Banana Republic (modesty is not her strong suit).

So where does the lesson come in? I was so amazed by the flattener’s results on my daughter’s hair that I even listened patiently and calmly when the girl told me that these tiny little things cost $200! I even did that thing in my head before she said the price where I tried thinking of the price I would actually pay for one of these things. My price point was $35, but of course I didn’t say this out loud for fear of being laughed at by Milan supermodel/sales girl. So when I said no, she went over to her coworkers and brought back a $50 gift certificate towards the purchase of one of these things. When I still hesitated she said she would give me an additional $20 off of that price. At this point we were down to $130, so I tell her that I am just not an impulsive shopper and asked her for her card. She then says really quietly “What if I can get you one for right about cost for $100?” I told her I was heading across the hall to Banana Republic and would think about it, since I really did like them (but of course I just wanted out of there). Even with $100 off, that still seemed expensive for a hair flattener. I also have a friend who used to be a cosmetologist, so I wanted to ask her if she had heard of them and to see if she thought I was crazy for even giving this woman the time of day. So we wandered off in the direction of BR; hoping to avoid her angry glares burrowing into the back of my head as we left. To be fair, it's not my fault we sucked up so much of her time. I asked her the minute my daughter sat in the chair how much they were, but she told me to wait and proceeded to curl away. Needless to say, we didn’t return to the kiosk. In fact, we went the other direction, up the escalators, around the top of the mall, and then out of the building.

The next day I was still a little curious about these cool little gadgets, so I got on Amazon.com (I am an Amazon addict!). How much were they??? An average of about $35, but, they were all being sold by private sellers and there were very few reviews, which is never a good sign. I guess the point is that if I really wanted one of these things, I wouldn't buy them for $200 at a kiosk in the mall. So what I have learned (long story short), is that you can haggle with those people in the kiosks in the mall and that generally they start their prices at roughly six times higher than a normal person would actually pay for their product. It was pretty cool though, uh, but not that cool. I also learned to look straight ahead when walking through the mall; avoiding eye contact with anyone who may want to sell you something. Finally, I learned that my rule of waiting 24 hour before buying expensive things is the way to go; especially with the Internet to help you to comparison shop. Another lesson learned...