I've been hired(seasonal)

[Opti]

Had my interview for seasonal retail today and I've been hired!
My training day is next Friday 10 to 6PM so that's actually a plus for
me over coming in two different days.

Things have changed since I worked for the company last. There are only three
departments that are commission sales in this location. The person I interviewed with
is responsible for two of them so I chose to get hired into her open PT commission sales
position in men's suits. So its $8/hr. plus commission with the draw issues versus a straight $8.75/hr.



(On my way out of the mall I found out apple store jobs are posted on
cooljobs.apple versus cooljobs.com.  )

[The Captain]

Yea!  Great news.

Work on those charms and get those men dressed to the 9's!

[Deleted]

Good luck!

And sounds like you won't succumb to the temptation of "reinvesting" your salary into the product you're selling.  Always a danger with retail sales.

[Cass]

Congrats! 

[tskeeter]

Oct 28, 2013 16:00:09 GMT -5 Opti said:

Had my interview for seasonal retail today and I've been hired!
My training day is next Friday 10 to 6PM so that's actually a plus for
me over coming in two different days.

Things have changed since I worked for the company last. There are only three
departments that are commission sales in this location. The person I interviewed with
is responsible for two of them so I chose to get hired into her open PT commission sales
position in men's suits. So its $8/hr. plus commission with the draw issues versus a straight $8.75/hr.



(On my way out of the mall I found out apple store jobs are posted on
cooljobs.apple versus cooljobs.com.  )

Back in the day when I wore suits, I had a certain sales person in one store that I used to buy all my suits through.  What I liked is that about a week before major sales, this sales person would put suits that I might like on hold.  I'd stop in and pick out a suit or two and the rest would be returned to the racks.  When the sale started, my suits would be rung up and the alterations begun.  This sales person also helped me pick out shirts, ties, and belts to go with the suits (Hey, accountants are style and color challenged.  We need all the help we can get.  I learned a lot about buying clothes from this sales person.).

[raeoflyte]

Great news!

[Nazgul Girl]

    Glad for you !!   Good luck and I hope you have lots of customers.

[Opti]

What I liked is that about a week before major sales, this sales person would put suits that I might like on hold. I'd stop in and pick out a suit or two and the rest would be returned to the racks. When the sale started, my suits would be rung up and the alterations begun.

I was told there are men's sales events at least once a month and that I should
utilize pre-sell which is basically what you are talking about. When we know a sale
is coming up we can pre-sell an item, but the customer can't pick it up until the sale
formally starts. Obviously I'd be OK with pre-selling several suits and ultimately only selling
one and getting the commission on that.

I'll get commission on suits, I think 6%, half that on ties. And commission on men's shoes
and some outerwear but not North Face. I think I might get minimal commission on Dockers
which tend to be go to pants for many guys.

One cool thing I will be trained on is how to mark up a men's suit for tailoring. I love learning new things so it should be fun to learn new stuff and hang out with men.
The store is going to storing customer's information and calling people before the sale.
Since I know there are sharks, i.e. commission stealers, I think I'll keep my own rolodex
or system at home too, in case I need to call my customers before the sharks do.

[Deleted]

Congrats!!!!

[Pants]

Way to go, optimist!

[Jaguar]

[Works4me]

Congratulations!

[NastyWoman]

Congratulations.  Hopefully this will get you out of your negative cashflow situation for now and be a start of many good things to come

[alabamagal]

Congrats!  It is a start.

Just remember to do the best you can at every thing you do.  That should be easier with the commision part!

[mmhmm]

I'm really happy for you, Optimist.  I know you were hoping for this hire.  Good for you! 

[Waffle]

Congrats.  I'm very happy for you.

[GRG a/k/a goldenrulegirl]

Welcome to the world of selling mens' suits. 

I do as well, for a competitor.  

I am married (to an accountant, LOL) and have 2 teenage boys, so selling mens' clothes was a natural fit because, frankly, I buy more of those for my family proportionately speaking than I do for women (me).

I really, really enjoy my job.  I love the art of matching shirts, ties, and suits.  I love knowing the details of the cuts and fabrics.  In my experience, most men hate to shop for clothes.  I go out of my way to be effective and efficient and it seems to work in my favor: many repeat customers already.  I may not be curing cancer or creating world peace, but I do gain a great deal of satisfaction from finding just the right suit for a customer.  I stayed late last night to finish a $1400 sale for a father and 20-something son headed off to a family wedding.  When I approached the family, the son was being a PITA because the parents were trying to put him in something too mature.  An extreme slim suit, modern slim shirt, and awesome bow tie later and he was hooked on this shopping thing -- he left with some Sperrys, some Tims, and some jeans, too.     

We have dedicated tailors on staff so I don't do any alteration markings, although I agree that you will be learning a very useful skill.  

The only downside to the job is that the flooring in my store is rock hard concrete covered by thin, cheap carpet.  At the end of a 9 hour shift, I hobble home to sit.  In the mornings, it is a good 20 minutes before I can walk flat on both feet without any great pain.  I went to a specialty shoe store and was advised to quit wearing my cute little flats (not enough cushioning/distance between the floor and my feet) and go with clogs with closed heels.  I already had some clogs, but I rock in them when I walk and thought that stride would make things worse.  Nope, the shoe salesperson was spot on.  Danskos run about $110/pair, as do Ariats.  But, they were so worth the price.  My heart and respect go out to those with chronic foot and/or leg pain for which they can find no relief -- that kind of pain really impacts one's quality of life.

Sell, sell, sell Opti.  Sell, sell, sell!!!!   

[taz157]

Congrats Opti!   

[Deleted]

Ok, you are working at Macy's.  I didn't work the Men's Dept. there but rather at Parisian's (a Saks store) that was later sold and became a Belk's store.

Some of this may not transfer, but some of it will.  At Parisian's we had to keep a book.  It is sort of like your Rolodex.  It lists customers' names, addresses, phone numbers, and purchases.  If customers are on a do-not-call list, you can't call them.  If they give you the phone number, you can.  So it is very important to tell customers that you would like their phone number to call them about sales, etc. We also wrote them thank-you notes for sales.  We were given the thank-you notes, and the company mailed them.  You did the thank-you notes and the calling during slow times in your dept.

I worked Ralph Lauren, not suits, so I basically didn't want to learn how to do alterations.  If you screw them up, it is not good for your career.  So I walked my customers over to Alterations and stood outside while the Alterations guy did the marking.  Alterations isn't on commission.  These guys are professionals.  Nobody ever complained, and I worked nights and weekends mostly.  But you might not have that option.

Men's shoes are usually on commission so you might as well hand them over and go back to your dept.  They will never get you the size, etc. if they can't sell the shoe.  You are better off saying, "Joe, would you please take of Johnny for me?  I know you are the best."  Trust me that you don't want to navigate the backroom of the shoe dept. 

Suits people only have to tidy their dept., not the entire store. The reason for that is the draw.  The store rightly reasons that it wasn't right for them to be working non-selling hours (and drawing) that were then set against their commission.  They also don't want to pay them the draw when they aren't selling.  I don't know exactly how the draw works, but it does make a difference.

Sales per hour and instant credits are the end-all and be-all of dept. stores.  You have to learn to chant, "Will you be putting that on your Macy's?" at the end of every sale.  Back in the day, they'd give the $2 or whatever when you earned, but it is taxable income.  So know that and put it aside.

Good luck!  I think you were a lamb led to slaughter because most of your customers for suits have regular guys that they buy from.  They will come back to let YOU mark their alterations (you can't refuse) or put something aside that they really like to have their regular guy ring up.  I learned quickly not to mess with the suits and shoe guys.  

You can still do well, but I think you let the idea of commission go to your head.  People don't buy suits for Christmas presents much.  You are seasonal sales.   You'll make more off ties than you will suits.

But just my two cents! 

[Opti]

Thanks GRG.

Apparently since I worked at Macy's last several things have changed including
no longer having tailors at the stores.  I used to love going upstairs to the tailor
back when I worked at a different Macy's to get things and chat with the tailor on duty.
It looked like a minature dry cleaners to me with all the clothes so its not like there
wasn't demand(at least then).

"The only downside to the job is that the flooring in my store is rock hard concrete covered by thin, cheap carpet. "

Same downside. Have no desire to do this FT because of that(and the pay). I go to the chiropractor still because of the damage I did to my back from working 2004 into 2005.
I did learn quickly to go for better shoes, but growing up I worked as a bakery clerk and
used to work FT in the summers so I was familar with the toll standing on your feet.
I really need to get my orthotics done again(per the orthotics guy when I had him redo
the cover on both). I had them done in 2005 as I have Morton's Toe
and the regular inserts in Orthofeet weren't sufficient. I guess its time to ask the freecycle
community for a foot bath. I know I used to dream of having one when I worked.

[Opti]

"Good luck! I think you were a lamb led to slaughter because most of your customers for suits have regular guys that they buy from. They will come back to let YOU mark their alterations (you can't refuse) or put something aside that they really like to have their regular guy ring up. I learned quickly not to mess with the suits and shoe guys.

You can still do well, but I think you let the idea of commission go to your head. People don't buy suits for Christmas presents much. You are seasonal sales. You'll make more off ties than you will suits.
"

Possibly true. The commission sales thing came up in the interview because I mentioned
I had worked Women's Better Sportswear last time on commission. The interviewer told me that things had changed and now they were down to three departments for commission sales. Women's shoes, Men's suits, and men's shoes. I said something like, "Oh, the only one I'd be interested in is Men's suits" and the rest became history. I have no idea financially whether this will be a good idea or not, but Christmas season usually is when commission sales pay off.

This is a Macy's with a smaller men's department than the store I was in last time.
The interviewer walked me through Men's Suits, Men's shoes and the backroom where
the Men's shoes are. Didn't look that bad, but like I said this is not a big Men's department
and they only had 6 people working Men's shoes total I think for the recent one day sale.

Women's shoes was the most desireable from the commission standpoint in 2004/2005
at my prior store. Lots of sharks so I had no desire to do battle every day for perhaps 20-25K/yr. tops when I had recently been laid off from a job that paid north of $90K. Still
won't kill myself on this, but playing with the sharks might be fun for a couple months.
See if I learned enough from being burned by one of them before.

BTW everyone, thanks for the good wishes. I can use some good wishes to get
my community college adjunct resumes completed and sent. And finding a friend
who will let me borrow their computer to do that online CRM type test this week.

[Opti]

"And sounds like you won't succumb to the temptation of "reinvesting" your salary into the product you're selling. Always a danger with retail sales."

Very true. And if you start strong its hard when all the associates around you
are going on buying sprees when the sales happen. At least I'll miss most of
the short window ones I'd care about being located in Men's Suits.

Unfortunately on my way out I noticed a gorgeous Brahimn(sp?) handbag that
was a better, prettier version of my Tiganello which needs replacing. Hopefully
I'll remain strong(encase my Macy's card in ice?) as it looks like it could easily
make 10 years and is so pretty.  Did not help that the salesperson was telling
me she owned two and was thinking of getting a third one.   That's what
I get for doing my check on Tiganello handbags and current prices.

(Apple would have been safer! I think...)

[Opti]

Oops, sorry GRG. You looked tasty and I thought you'd be fine.
(Do Zombie sales associates lose the sale when they bite their customers? )

[Deleted]

Sugi - Gotcha 


Congrats Pumpkinist - wondered why you were chasing retail, but with commission it totally makes sense!  Good Luck with that & here's to lots of happy, buying customers 

[Wisconsin Beth]

Oct 28, 2013 20:13:53 GMT -5 taz157 said:

Congrats Opti!