Socioeconomic separation of the consumer class from the servant class. As discussed in the article, humans shop there and buy $25 socks for their $300 shoes, but a thirty-something part time minimum wage no benefits homeless dude is not part of that class.
My last retail job was a decade ago, but yeah, I'm getting the same impression. I think it is because the margins are getting even smaller thanks to a variety of factors (the prevalence of online shopping being the biggest influence, IMHO).
