So, I’m in Chicago last weekend with my family and decided to take Baby Marlow, our 3 ½ -year-old daughter, to American Girl on Michigan Avenue. I knew I was in for an expensive trip, but I wasn’t prepared for the single most ridiculous thing that has ever happened to me at the register in the history of retail.
Before I get to that, though, let me just state that I think the American Girl enterprise, which Mattel purchased from a former school teacher outside of Madison, Wisconsin in 1998 for a reported $700M, and which has annual revenues of over $300M, is an ingenious way to get parents to spend hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars on Made In China dolls and related tchotchkes. A visit to an American Girl store is like making pilgrimage to Mecca for young children. My daughter, for one, talked about going there for weeks in advance and literally broke out into a full-on dance party when we walked in and she heard her favorite song playing over the speakers. The kid was happy beyond her wildest dreams. And, so were we.
Marlow picked out all sorts of accessories and toys for her Bitty Baby doll: a doctor’s kit, a matching outfit for both Marlow and her doll to wear, and who knows what else. If you can imagine it (and even if you can’t), American Girl will sell it to you, as evidenced by the Airstream camper they offer so your doll can go glamping in your basement. Marlow amassed a stash of about $250 worth of junk, but I didn’t care about the price. I knew it would be expensive, and I was happy making the investment because it produced a million-dollar smile on my little girl.
Before checking out, we went for brunch at the American Girl restaurant. The food was over-priced and underwhelming. Actually, it was really bad. But the service was cute and Marlow’s Bitty Baby got her own place setting, so Marlow thought it was the greatest restaurant ever. Again, I didn’t mind spending the money because it made my little girl so happy.
Now here comes the crazy part: we head to the register, the cashier rings us up and asks, “Would you like a bag for seven cents?”

“What kind of bag?” I ask.
She shows me a paper bag and responds, “One of these, so you can carry your items.”
What cheap bastards! What jerks! I spend $250 on all sorts of crap that couldn’t have cost them $10 to produce, $100 on a terrible brunch, and they want SEVEN CENTS more from me?
If I were anywhere else, I would have left the stuff at the counter and walked out empty-handed, but I’d do anything to make Marlow happy, so I decided to swallow my pride and cough up the money for a bag.
I left the store part angry and part perplexed. My wife and I talked about the bag on and off for the rest of the day. I had so many questions:
Why seven cents? Surely this bag cost a lot more.
Why not charge me $2 or $3 to cover the expense?
If only seven cents, why charge at all?
Didn’t they make enough money on me already?
What idiot came up with this idea?
Later that evening, I decided to ask Mother Google what this whole thing was all about, and you know what I found? It turns out the City of Chicago implemented a Retail Bag Tax on plastic and paper bags given to customers at retail establishments in an effort to reduce the environmental impact of disposable bags. I’m not going to comment on the absurdity of that initiative (oh wait, did I just do so?), but I will say that as soon as I read the explanation, all my anger toward American Girl disappeared.
Here I thought that American Girl had chosen to extort every last nickel out of its customer base, when in reality they were mandated by law to do charge me. In this case, baggers really can’t be choosers.
(Read the line above again. I’m proud of it.)
The lesson here? American Girl needs to do a better job of explaining the what and the why behind the Bag Tax and of informing customers like me that it’s a tax and not a fee. They could have placed a small sign at the register, printed it right on the bag, or even trained their cashiers to explain it.
I’ll bet there are things in my business that I think my customers know and understand so we don’t explain them, we just charge and take for granted that the customer gets it. Maybe it’s a core deposit or a shipping charge, maybe it’s a requirement to replace a radiator that we assume the customer should just know, or maybe it’s something else. In fact, maybe you could tell me: when dealing with ETE REMAN, what do you wish you had a better understanding of? What frustrates you? What procedures just don’t make sense?
Now let’s talk about you. I’ll bet there are things in your business that you’d do better to explain to your customers. Think about all the fees and policies and processes your customer may or not understand. Maybe you’ve got stuff like shop supplies, storage fees, environmental fees, waste fees, finance charges, or credit card fees. Whatever they are, learn from my experience with American Girl and consider what you can do at your shop to be sure your customers don’t leave uninformed and unhappy.

Now it’s your turn. Tell us what you charge customers for in your shop and how you explain it to them in a way that they get it, understand it, and accept it.