18/08/2009 - Pretty staff put women off - study
Female shoppers can be put off buying a product if they perceive the shop assistant to be more attractive than them, an academic study has found.
The research by Bianca Price at the University of South Australia found that many women viewed attractive assistants as "a direct social threat". Ms Price studied a group of women between the ages of 18 to 26 and compared how they reacted when confronted with an attractive or unattractive staff member.
"Retailers often think that beautiful is better," said Ms Price. "In the same way they use a celebrity to endorse a product, they hire a beautiful girl thinking that it reflects the brand and that other women will want to be like her."
Ms Price, who believes that "women are biologically competitive", said: "Retailers need to understand that beauty can affect their bottom line. The solution lies in hiring women of all shapes and sizes, someone for each of your potential customers to relate to."
Riam Dean, a law student with a prosthetic arm, recently won a case against clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch for wrongful dismissal. Ms Dean claimed she was forced to work in the stockroom of the London store as she did not fit their "look" policy.
Copyright © Press Association 2009
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