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SCMP Reporter

Unwelcome at LV

Long-time Louis Vuitton fan Jeremy Tan said he was less than welcome at the fashion brand's flagship shop in London during an  overseas trip. He said this was inexplicable as his only sin was to have asked to see its latest products.

'I would like to share with you my recent experience at Louis Vuitton's London flagship store in Bond Street,' the Happy Valley reader writes.

'I was browsing in the store and was asking one of the sales assistants to show me their latest range  to add to my already fairly substantial collection.

'A store manager then came up to me and asked if the sales assistant had provided me with the necessary help. I replied, 'Yes thanks', but noticed that the store manager was looking at me suspiciously.

'I therefore asked the store manager if something was wrong. His reply was, 'You tell me'.

'I thought someone had planted something in my shopping bags and I was being accused of shoplifting. I therefore checked my bags and decided to leave the shop.' Mr Tan walked out, but then changed his mind and returned to confront the store manager.

'I asked the store manager why I was being singled out and questioned. He then asked for my name,' he writes. 'I refused and insisted on questioning the store manager as to why he had pulled me aside earlier on and made me feel extremely guilty, and what was it that made him suspicious in the first place.

'A security guard came round and told me that it was part of their store policy to have me questioned.

'Even today I am wondering why?'

LV's public relations company has promised to reply to queries from Take Action but had not done so at the time of publication.

Bus-stop blues

'Perplexed in Pokfulam' admires the clean and efficient airport buses run by Citybus, but wants to know why they are skipping her neighbourhood.

'Every time I take the train to the airport I observe flotillas of airport buses streaming towards their destination, either nearly or totally devoid of passengers. They are clean, fast, efficient and a fraction of the cost of the train,' the Pokfulam resident writes.

'But there is not a single bus stop from Aberdeen to Pokfulam where you can pick one up. Tens of thousands of people live in this area, and perhaps over a hundred need to make the journey to the airport on any given day. Yet not one of the bus companies sees fit to send a single bus our way.

'In my small building alone, a dozen men or more have to fly out to do business somewhere in Asia every week or so, and all are forced to travel all the way into Central, either to one of the numerous airport bus stops there, or to the Airport Express.'

Can you please let me know why we can't have an airport bus scheduled to go through Pokfulam?

Citybus replies: We would like to clarify that buses on the Citybus airport network carry a daily ridership of 45,000. Franchised bus companies are required by law to submit to the Transport Department every year a Route Development Plan,  outlining the operator's proposed new services or route changes. Citybus has proposed running an airport service from the Southern District, via Pokfulam Road and Kennedy Town, to the airport and other nearby areas in 2004-2005. The decision from the department is still pending.

Feeling lost in Ikea

Ikea shopper Chris Kyme, of North Point, says he feels lost shopping at its flagship furniture store in Causeway Bay these days because there are few English signs.

'While shopping in Ikea recently I was surprised and somewhat bewildered to notice that all of the product information signs inside the story are now almost exclusively in Chinese.

'What astounds me is that Ikea, surely, must have a larger expatriate customer base than, say, the average noodle shop in Tsuen Mun.'

Ikea customer service manager Lisa Yau replies that the store regrets Mr Kyme's disappointment.

'We initially felt that to have the information displayed in bilingual format would give the feeling of information 'overflow' to customers,' she writes.

However, Ikea has decided to introduce bilingual signs  to all its stores in the next few months.



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