Persuasion based sales strategies with perspective of customers and salespeople in ready- made clothing stores: A phenomenological analysis

Personalized sales process emerges through a procedure that embody persuasive communication and promoting activities. The aim of respective sales process is to persuade the customer for a positive purchase decision on the item they want to buy from the store. Despite all these modernized sales techniques, researches and observations show that in some stores, especially small scale businesses, traditional sales process are still in effect. Sales assistants are the employees that are equipped with the sufficient product information as well as the skills of presentation and persuasion to change the attitude and behaviour of the customer towards a positive purchase decision over the products at hand. The aim of this study is to determine whether these persuasion strategies that are applied by the sales assistants create a pressure on the customer or not, using qualitative and phenomenological research design methods. Sales assistants and the customers at the stores were asked profoundly thorough semi-open ended questions right after the sales took place on the persuasion strategies they applied on the customers and if they felt that these strategies became an oppressive element on the customer, and the answers obtained via these questions were elaborated on by using the phenomenological analysis design. This research was carried on in Bandırma County with 15 customers who shopped at these ready to wear clothes stores and 15 employees that work in these stores. Findings obtained as a result of this study showed that the oppressive behaviour applied by the sales assistants lost effect on the on the customers. Because of the fact that their time is more valuable and important to them, customers ignored the oppressive persuasion techniques of the employees and made their decision of purchases on the basis of their own budgets, needs and ideas.