So I set up at my first local vendors event as a face painter. There were several other vendors in a large indoor area. As a parent or child began looking at my booth, the guy running the booth across from me, I’ll call him Peter, began distracting them from my booth by saying loudly, "Wanna free sample?!"
I noticed he only did this in a boisterous way as he saw someone looking at my booth or began approaching it. Of course, who WOULDN’T stop dead in their tracks for a deliciously FREE sweet sample of desserts?!
I let this go on for about 2 hours. With only 30 mins left of the event, Peter sidetracked a mother and father with two kids, who were clearly approaching my booth and bypassing his. There he went again with his sugary sweets saying, "Wanna free sample?"
The parents were sort of confused and as they stood there looking at him he began talking about something quietly. He knew I was onto him. The little girl just stood there with money in her hand by her parents staring at me so excitedly, very eager to get her face painted.
So…it was my turn.
As the family was still by his booth I smiled and waved at the little girl and said, "Hi 👋 how are you?" She smiled even bigger and giggled excitedly and I said, "Aww you are so excited!"
Then Peter out loud said, "What?" while looking at me, half laughing with anger in shock. Then the mom and dad walked away from him, without a sample, and said to him, "She wants her face painted." 😑 AITA for in turn, going out of my way and taking advantage to "steal" a child as a customer?
NTA. He started it! Having run stalls at craft fairs, getting folk’s attention is important so engaging them when they are at or approaching your stall is key. However, trying to distract customers from another vendor’s stalls is not okay. Once they approach his stall, then is the time to offer freebies to draw them in and hopefully turn them into customers.
You only did back to him what he had been doing to you and his face told you it was not okay. So if it wasn’t okay for you to do that to him; it wasn’t okay for him to do that to you.
The thing is, when you go to these craft fairs, the idea is a relaxed atmosphere and plenty of time for folk to browse the stalls. It’s not meant to be cut throat/taking away business from others. He was out of order.
I mean, clearly you’re NTA. How could you think you were?
No, you’re not the A, you matched his energy after hours of him intentionally hijacking your customers, and at that point it stopped being coincidence and became competition. You didn’t lie, you didn’t trick anyone, and the kid literally walked up with money ready for **your** service, so you just acknowledged her instead of letting him interrupt again. He wasn’t upset because you did something wrong he was upset because his tactic stopped working. You didn’t “steal” a customer, you reclaimed one that already chose you.