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This article builds on years of work studying territoriality and conflict issues between customers and employees in retail and service settings. The key contribution of this research is to illustrate the bad behaviors and conflicts that take place in retail spaces between customers, between customers and employees, and between employees. Using multi-methods of data collection--critical incident technique, interviews, mystery shoppers, and surveys--the authors outline these bad behaviors and conflicts for managers and offer nine solutions to help retailers handle these behaviors and conflict in retail spaces.

Closing time for a retailer or service provider represents a time when a store is in transition from an open domain to a closed domain. During this time, employees' tasks change from primarily serving customers to managing their closing time activities while concurrently serving customers. As such, shoppers are impacted by employee actions and closing time duties, often in a negative way. We found through our research that customers act with retaliatory, territorial behaviors, and employees report stress and annoyance over closing time practices, yet managers consistently say no problems exist with their closing time practices. In this article, we outline three key problems retailers face in their closing time practices and offer guidance on how to overcome these obstacles.