I never got into the helpful staff thing. I dislike being helped when in shops. Clearly I have been in New Zealand too long. Something that really irked me in the US was the way taxes worked. I never knew what I was going to pay, as taxes weren't included in the label price. It wasn't a large percentage, but I never could quite understand why anyone would take the time to make a price label which showed a price different to what I would pay. Does anywhere else do this? i have travelled a fair bit and have never encountered it before (My US experience was limited to California I should note).
(Completely off-topic here, but my understanding is that sales tax in the US can vary from county to county, and definitely varies from state to state, so it's simpler in the case of labelling, and impossible in the case of national advertising, to show the final price. Contrast with Europe where sales tax is nationally fixed, which makes it easy to show the final price. (and in some places illegal not to!))
It's like this in Canada too. Very irritating. Especially because somethings are subject to tax and some aren't so it isn't even as simple as just adding a percentage to every price.
