A gift shop retailer in the German city of Essen is so sick and tired of customers only browsing his items that he has decided to charge a 2 euro entry fee to anyone who enters the store.
“Valuable waste of time”
If you enter Michael Pütz’ store in Essen, you will get an immediate warning to pay 2 euro. If no subsequent purchase follows, the money goes to the retailer; but if one does purchase something, the value is deducted from the purchase. “During the day, I also work on deliveries and if someone browses for 15 minutes and I cannot continue my work, then that increases the pressure and I lose valuable time”, Pütz explained his decision to German paper Die Welt.
Not everyone is opposed to what Pütz is doing, particularly other retailers who feel like they are just a showroom for online stores like Amazon. Others are not as forgiving: “Everyone visits different shops before actually buying something! This is a rip-off! I hope this gets banned or he loses a lot of customers”, a Facebook post states.
Pütz is surprised some people are actually choosing to pay the entry fee instead of just buying a small item to recover the money.
