Can you be kicked out of a store in the mall for just looking and taking notes in a notebook?

Q: I am a student and I am doing an internship for a company where we just answer general consumer questions like whats on sale, new stuff in the store, traffic, etc, nothing too specific as I do know asking about stores numbers is out of line. I usually go in and am able to do this stuff without asking for help. For the most part store managers are more than happy to help out of curiousity for what I might ask, but I recently had a run in with a manager at a womens apparel store I had gone to. I told the manager that I track fashion and that I am a marketing major. Then I asked her the basic question"Are these dresses selling well?" She immediatly said, "Oh you have to contact our corporate office for more information" She started being really stand offish, asking for my name and how she was going to tell her district manager. I just want to know my rights in the mall and the stores. I mean I go to the mall to shop but also to take notes for my reports, this internship is really important to me and I really just want it to work out. I am not an employee of the company doing the internship, I am a contractor by their terms, the company is based in NY and I am in Texas. Please give me some good answer folks! Thanks!!! I might add that I did not ask for help she approached me first. I felt that because I was a guy she profiled me as well as someone who probably would not buy something. well, I wasn't asked to leave the store at all, I wanted to know what they could do. She left me alone after I told her I am a customer and I am looking, please leave me alone. She didn't say or do anything else after the whole fiasco. Another thing was that I had been to the same store before and the manager was more than happy to answer any question within reason. I really do understand what you are trying to say but I feel this manager was trying to show her authority more than anything by being rude and standoff ish, plus the store was empty so there was no one to witness what happend.

A: It is their store and their rules. She might have been worried you are really working for a competing store. I know wal-mart workers often go to other stores near buy to compare prices so they can lower and match their prices to that other store and sometimes they get asked to leave when they are seen writing things down. Don't be offended, the manager was just doing her job, she miss understood what you were doing there. In the future you don't need to give them your name or anything, you can just leave. Is there another store you can use for your report, like the same store just in a different location? I would try that if you need info from that specific store. I would also let the company you are doing your internship at, know what happened. I don't think her coming up to you to talk had anything to do with you being a guy, I think it had everything to do with you taking notes. I work for a retail company and we were told by head office that if we see anyone taking notes, they are probably the competition and to get them out of the store as soon as possible. So I asked the boss "What if it turns out it really is a customer?" And he told me "We would rather lose one customer than give the competition an edge." I think in the future you should use a very small note pad to write things down so you don't draw suspicion. In bigger stores (like wal-mart) they don't care as much about people taking notes their profit margin is much bigger. Price comparison can really hurt smaller stores as they can only lower their prices a small amount before they lose profit. (they don't sell the volume) How do you know the company you work for isn't hurting some of these stores? If they are giving info to the public about let's say stores X and Y, and they tell people store X has much cheaper jeans and they are very similar or the same jeans as store Y, where do you think the public is going to buy their jeans? That's right, store X, and store Y will lose a bunch of customers, and money.

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