Every time I go into the Ace Hardware near here, there are several sales people lined up waiting to ask customers as they walk in the store if they need help. Not an occasional clerk --- all of them do this. If you tell them you know what you're looking for or just want to look around, they come by now and then to make sure you still don't want any help. The only thing I can think is that this isn't by accident, that the business is run a certain way because the hardward down the street isn't like that at all. There the clerks stand around and talk and act like they don't know the customers are there.
What's more in this store, the employees that look 18 are just as eager to wait on you as those who look 60 --- it is too across the board to be some kind of accident.