Originally Posted by grolby

Ah, I see. What you should do is wear a t-shirt that says "EXPERIENCED CYCLIST" in block print. That way the shop staff will be sure to recognize you for the expert that you are. Alternatively, you could swallow your ego a bit, but that would be bad for the expert self-image. Seriously, making recommendations is a salesperson's JOB. And while this is not always true, the salesperson knows more about what they have and what seems to work best for most customers than you do.

Regarding the first point - here's what we do at my shop. A customer comes in. We give them a friendly greeting and ask if we can help them with finding anything. If they are looking at bikes, then we go ahead and try to sell them a bike. If they are looking for a tire or some accessory or another, we don't try to sell them a bike. If your shop is trying to sell you a bike when you've come in clearly looking for tires, that's stupid and wrong. If you come in and are window-shopping the bikes, they're going to see if they can convert that interest to a sale. Because that's what you do. They shouldn't be pushy about it, but you don't let an opportunity go.

I'm still kind of blown away by how many people think that a retail store SHOULDN'T try to sell something to people that walk in the door. Again, it's wrong to be pushy - if someone says they're just looking around, we'll let them be for awhile (if they stick around a bit, we check in again). But it's just as wrong to ignore customers until they approach you. A lot of people will walk away if you don't try to sell them - even though they want to buy something. It just goes to show, you can't please everyone.