Would you pay to try on clothes in-store?
A handful of struggling Australian boutiques sure hopes so.
The Sydney Morning Herald writes that thanks to a 4.8 percent drop in clothing and footwear sales, retailers there have come up with a series of new tactics to encourage customers to buy off the rack and not online (for a presumably lower price)...including a fitting room fee, which is then refunded upon purchase.
And according to News.com.au, that fee could be as much as $50, the amount some ski shops are charging to try on boots.
Designer Clare Press explained why it's come to this, telling the Herald, ''As a designer with one store, we have become a destination so you have to work hard as customers are no longer going to walk past and buy a dress on a whim.''
The try-on-clothes-for-a-charge concept could ostensibly work in the customers' favor -- shorter dressing room lines, only having to browse the shelves along with serious shoppers...but we're not sure how, in the end, it'll help bring in that much more dough.
What do you think?
