http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/03/27/09/09/brisbane-store-charges-$5-fee-to-browse
" A Brisbane specialty food-store owner has defended charging customers $5 to browse in the shop without buying any products.
Georgina, who did not want her last name to be published, put a sign in the window of her Brisbane specialty food store Celiac Supplies in January to inform customers that a $5 fee will be charged for "just looking."
A photograph of the sign was posted to social news website Reddit this week and generated worldwide media coverage.
But Georgina told ninemsn that the global interest in her $5 fee was a "mountain made from a mole hill".
She said her store was not the first to implement a "just looking fee" and that very few people noticed or commented on the sign when it originally went up.
She said she had put up the sign after spending extensive periods of time helping people with their specialty food requirements, only for them to buy products elsewhere.The sign in Brisbane's Celiac Supplies store window to inform customers of a $5 "just looking" fee.
"It's upsetting to hear people who have spent your time getting information and then saying to each other, 'Now we know what to buy. Let's go somewhere else'," she said.
"The 'else' can be the internet or the big stores.
"People pay for services all the time, so why not pay for a food information service? This business, like every other business, has expenses to cover.
"No one covers expenses when customers don't pay for services."
But Georgina has faced tough criticism for the policy, with a flood of comments appearing on the store's Facebook page this week.
"Just re read your sign....$5 per person.....so if my mum and dad and sister and I browse together....you score $20 bucks...that's laughable," wrote one poster.
Georgina told ninemsn she never charged the fee to pensioners, elderly people, handicapped people or regular customers and had no plans to discontinue it.
Source: Georgina, Celiac Supplies.
Author: Sylvia Varnham O'Regan, Approving editor: Mark Worley"
I mean, I know that Australia was founded as a penal colony but it now seems that the thieving ways of those transported have not been forgotten!
If she can't compete and explain to her customers that her store can give them the best deal then she should find another job!
