Officine Universelle Buly 1803 — Local services in Paris

RACIST STAFF; ANTI-ASIAN DISCRIMINATION

I've never written a bad review for a business before, but my visit here left such a terrible taste in my mouth that I had to say something.

One of the shopkeepers here is, frankly, racist, and the overall customer service was lacking.

I waited about 20 minutes to get inside the store. The security guard was unfriendly, but not outright rude. Once I was inside, no one greeted me or even acknowledged my presence. I wasn't sure how things worked (I wasn't familiar with the pumps they used to provide samples of their perfumes before, so I looked at what the other customers were doing and followed their lead). This wasn't a big deal in and of itself.

Then I found a fragrance I really liked and asked the one of the shopkeepers, an older lady, more questions about it. She was standoffish the entire time and told me it was sold out. When I asked follow up questions about when it would be back in stock or if there were in-stock fragrances with similar notes, she basically refused to answer. She just said "every fragrance is different" and walked away before our conversation was finished. I wanted to buy a body oil if the perfume wasn't available but she didn't even give me a chance to say that.

Look, I've dealt with rude shopkeepers before. It happens, and I think I would've let it go had I not seen the DRASTIC difference with which she treated a white family minutes later. She was smiling and laughing with them, providing recommendations and offering to let them sample different perfumes.

Seeing the way she treated this all-white family versus how she treated me, an Asian customer, made me deeply uneasy. Even then, I thought I might be thinking too much into things, but when I came online and saw the MANY similar reviews from other Asian customers, I can't deny it any longer.

The shopkeeper is definitely racist toward Asians, and while the official brand account has responded to most of those reviews with apologies and offers to make things right, the fact that the shopkeeper is still employed at the front of the house and still discriminating against customers based on their race/ethnicity says it all. Some of those reviews calling out their discriminatory behavior are from over a year ago. They've had time to make changes, but they haven't.

I will never give this shop a cent of money again, and I encourage other non-white customers to take your business elsewhere as well because the staff has made it clear they don't...

So in my time in Paris I’ve had very little negative experiences I’m sorry to say this was a VERY big one. So how the store operates is there is a queue outside and you are let in, a couple of people at a time - and once you come in, an associate attends to you, explaining the process and offers you suggestions. So my party of two waits in line for an hour and comes in the store and at this time there is two ladies ahead of us taking quite some time choosing their products. They’re making special requests and asking lots of questions. It is now finally our turn. We are at the front of the queue waiting to be attended to just like the ladies before us but instead we watch as they let in 4 more people in the store behind us and we still haven’t been helped. We say excuse me may we have some help? Associate #1 says her coworker will help us and asks me to step away from the counter so her clients may smell the perfume in front of me. Associate #2 who is supposed to be helping us finally comes over but explains absolutely nothing and offers no suggestions (this is important because I watched her explain everything to the ladies in front she even smelled the young ladies hand to see if the perfume fit her). So I say to her unsmiling face, can you tell me which is sweet? She sighs as if I’m bothering her and tells me too options. After 5 short minutes she excuses herself without explanation and we’re standing again (still at the front of the queue) without an attendant. 10 more minutes pass and we ask associate #1 for help. She tells us our associate left to do a online order in the middle of helping us so we have to wait, meanwhile she is helping the people who came in after us. At this point we are angry and we tell associate #1 we are not happy and she calls the manager. The manager comes and says “is there a problem?” We say of course as we are now standing in almost full store but are the only ones not being helped and the only ones not fair skinned! The manager huffs a dramatic sigh and says “sorry ladies it’s a Saturday!” Completely unapologetic- like we were bothering her. We told her forget it we’ll leave and we walked out. Her attitude was nasty and her face nastier! Too bad I didn’t read the other reviews it appears this place is prejudice. Please spend your money elsewhere. I had an amazing experience the next day at Nose perfume store with prompt and...

Lord.. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a bad experience in a “luxury” store in my life. There’s 2 queues which to the sheep mindset is fine but not for me. They transfer people 500 meter away from the store with a security person who gives you a card to go into - not the store- the SECOND queue. To me just the experience of that ruined everything. There was about 13 people in each queue, Standing in the cold- which I don’t mind that much but, I don’t want to stand like a wet rat waiting for ANOTHER queue. The people in line were also not happy and the collective energy was that everyone just hated it. When I finally got into the store it was PACKED. Packed. You could not test perfumes or move without pardon pardon.. you get attached a sales lady and she tries to help you but the poor lady herself can’t breathe. You can’t even look at the beautiful design or anything you just feel in prison. The store is tiny. My sales lady was a wonderful lady under so much stress I felt so bad for her, she told me she’s so sorry and that they’ve been trying to change this for months and she called the manager without me asking to tell him of my experience. He said there’s nothing they can do and that they’ve employees are unhappy too. The sweet lady gave me a velvet pouch (without me asking!) to try to compensate, mind you of course I was polite and did not express my feelings, it was just VERY obvious, people knocking into each other like it’s a nightclub. I ended up getting two things which I love as I’ve been purchasing online from bully for years but the in store experience was absolute low. Bully- stop torturing your classy and sweet employees and give them some space to do their work and service each customer with attentiveness they deserve! This ruined the atmosphere for me although I adore the brand. I hope that lovely lady knows this isn’t her fault. I am French myself and do not expect pristine American costumer service I just expect peace and the ability to sense and feel the perfumes with your whole body. It is a sensual and sacred experience. It felt like you are paying a LOOOOT for nothing. Which is not what I think should represent bully.. I’m sad because I’ve been buying from them for years online but the IRL...