What is Retailing

The aim of this chapter is to identify whether frontline employees perceived themselves as having feelings of sexism, ageism, and appearance discrimination against customers in retail services. This investigation is a quantitative research, a conclusive description (Gil, 2002), and ex post facto study, which utilises a survey to collect the data and sampling by convenience. Three protocols are used (1) to format the questionnaire, (2) to produce 12 different standards combining age, gender, and appearance, and (3) to create social classification (Rattam, 1998). In a previous study (Palmeira, Palmeira, & Santos, 2012), customers of different ages and genders perceived some degree of prejudice and discrimination in face-to-face retail services. Now, on the other side of the coin, frontline employees who work in Fashion and Food retailing recognise that there is prejudiced behaviour against customers, depending on their age, gender, and appearance, when providing them with face-to-face retail services. More than 95% of female and more than 64% of male attendants believe that well-dressed, young female customers are given priority when being served. Almost 80% of female and only 58% of male frontline workers believe that badly-dressed middle-aged men (not younger men) are the last to be served when there is no clear queuing process in the retail spatial area. This context strongly suggests the growing importance of an interpersonal skills training process for an organisations' staff as a way of avoiding behaviour that makes the customers think that there are prejudice and discrimination in the service process, as well as ASL development (T&D against Ageism, Sexism, and Lookism) being part of the strategic statements.