I've always felt that gender can somehow influence how a sales employees deals with you in certain specialty stores. When buying auto parts, for instance, my brother always manages to get the lower price or the bigger discounts. Hence, I usually ask for his help when it comes to canvassing for stuff like auto parts and electronics or computer parts. It's like the sellers assume outright that they can't fool around with him because he's routinely familiar with those stuff. On the other hand, my brother loses out when it comes to bargaining for household items, clothes, fruits, vegetables, and foods in general. Do you have similar experiences?
The only "discrimination" that I have heard of so far when buying in stores is when my bro told me that the sales clerk in the bike shop that they went to sort of assumed they could not afford the merchandise there based on how they were dressed, since they were in simple biking attire. I guess we can't help it if people tend to judge other people by how they look or how they were dressed up. As for discrimination based on genders, I have no experience yet on that matter.
Some products are relative to gender like women’s clothing and apparel, naturally the sales attendant should be a woman. With car and car parts, I would be surprised if I would be assisted by a woman. Perhaps I would be more trusting if the attendant is a guy. But when it comes to food stuff like fruits and vegetables, I would like to be assisted by a woman because I am used to seeing women manning the market stalls of fruits and vegetables.
Women tends to get more discounts because they enjoy shopping better than men. Also they know how to negotiate to vendors to get discounts even if there is no promo. I notice most of the online shopping coupon sites caters to mom because they always have the budget for the family.
I regularly have male retail staff act like I am a moron when I am buying equipment, and I think gender has a lot to do with it. Often it eventually becomes clear they actually know much less about electronic components than I do, and many staff could not cope at all with the applications I was buying for (research equipment). Instead of just giving me something to spec they would insist I explain the whole damn thing to them. One up side of more parts being clam-shell packed rather than hidden in draws and bins is that I don't have to talk to the staff at all. What does it matter if one gender is more likely to have an interest in a subject or not? Each one of us is an individual and should be assumed to know what we are doing until proven otherwise. If I want to buy a motor, resistor or fuse I don't care who sells it to me as long as they don't act like an ass and actually make the transaction more difficult than it needs to be
I really never seen or experience such things, though I wouldn't really put it passed some sellers who just want to make a good sale. I don't get out too much nor do I pay that much attention to those sorts of things, but as long as I feel like I'm not being conned I really don't mind too much.