Not like in the sense of arguing with customers but like just welcoming them and making sure that their shopping experience is good.

I work at a clothing store and one of my managers keeps pestering me to talk more when I welcome customers every time they walk through the door, but I always mess up one way or another.

Most customers that walk in,I can sense they don’t know what they’re looking for specially and simple want to look around and not be bothered. So I tell them our promotions for the day and let them look.

My manager doesn’t like it. She said I should’ve asked like 2-3 causal questions like “oh what are you looking for? Any special occasions? And fun plans this weekend? Going on a special trips you need an outfit for?” I know there’s a time and place for those kind of questions while people look around but she wants me asking those right as they come in. And it just feels unnatural and forced. Somehow she does it well and they love chatting with her. But when I do it, they’re like “oh I’m just browsing”. Like they look at me and they don’t want to talk. And it’s making my job so hard because she’s breathing down my neck and pulling me aside saying “remember ask them what they’re plans are so we can get them styled and they’ll feel the need to buy more”

Idk I don’t think she’s right. People will buy from our store regardless if we have a small conversation or not. The products should speak for itself. We sell a lot of cute outfits. My manager wants me to get to know there styles but I don’t know exactly what we have in stock to be confident to suggest what we have. We have sweaters for the holidays and it’s scattered everywhere. We have jeans of different styles and it’s all over the shop. I just don’t know until you try it on. usually I talk more about styles once the customers find something they want to try on.

Overall I think my manager loves picking on me because I have an introvert personality. I’ve talked to customers, just not when she’s around. I wish nicer customers would walk in when she’s training me but they never are and it makes me look bad in front of her.

I feel like I might lose my job just because I don’t know how to engage with every customer in a way that feels natural and not totally fake.

Yes this is a rant. Yes i know how corporate life works. I'm just....angry. frustrated. Dissapointed. Fuming. Boiling. My sleepless night, my reliability, my knowledge, my split shifts, my training her. All of it. And i know leaving is the best option but let's face it. The job market sucks right now. It's not easy. But gezuz christ.

Any tips for working in luxury retail? I typically wear all black to/for work and look presentable. Would wearing a small heel also be appealing? Getting nails done? I’m trying to maximize my KPIs as I want to pivot into the finance world in 3-6 months.

Thank you for any and all tips!

I’ve been on disability since 2012, I haven’t worked since then. I am better now and can work. This will hopefully be my first job in a long time. It’s for Bealls department store. I’m really excited and nervous at the same time. What can I expect at the interview and how do I prepare? I also applied at bath and body works and Kirklands but I haven’t heard back from them yet.

Why are “night” shift merchandisers being switched to a 10am start time and labeled as “day-flex” employees?? The reasoning of “better up-keeping of stores” doesn’t make sense to me as we won’t be there as late to stock up.

Honestly it also doesn’t really make sense to me for us to start as the second shift when the first shift still has 4 hours till they’re done.

So why is this shift in business operations happening? Can someone offer a better explanation than “better up-keeping of stores”?

Because of pure greed, he was able to strip these iconic brands and sell them off for parts piece by piece until nothing remained. Pensions gone, retirements went up in smoke, and local communities went belly up.

I've been working in retail for the last year, and boy did I choose an "interesting" location. I never know where to put these stories because they're just... bonkers. I hope someone here enjoys the joke that is my life. Here's what happened today:

I hear over the communicator that someone is walking around the candy aisle with a crack pipe in his hand. I take a look, and see him walking towards the front. When I arrive up front I see him standing in line with a bag of gummy candy, and his favorite piece of glassware. Surprisingly, he's not stealing.

I hop on the spare register, hoping to quickly check him out away from other customers without making a scene. While he pays in spare change, I tell him he needs to put the pipe away. It's illegal, there are kids around, why do I even have to say this? He seems incapable of putting the pipe in his pocket, or understanding what "put it away" means.

He buys a sprite. Fiddles with a chain in his pocket and tells me, "I'm trying to show you, but she's being bougie right now. It's probably because of you." I have no idea how to respond to that, so I just prompt him to leave by repeatedly asking if there's anything else I can help him with, if he's sure he doesn't want a bag, etc. Eventually he leaves.

About 30 minutes later I end up outside with the store manager, look across the parking lot at the bus stop, and who do I see? Our friend, who seems to have made more friends with the police. He was searched by 3 officers, and released. I personally couldn't care less what drugs people do or how they live. But maybe, just maybe, I had some good advice about hiding it from the general public.

We need more companies like this who value their workers! Thank you Walmart!

I’ve worked at restaurants and trust me there is a lot of rude customers there but they are no where near as rude and entitled as people at retail stores. I’ve been called racial slurs(for a ethnicity I’m not even a part of),I’ve been run into with carts,been threatened,had men touch me and be strange,been screamed at because I couldn’t check a price right then and there. I get that “that’s just retail for you” but why has it become so normalized to be abused by customers as retail workers. It’s genuinely one of the most mentally draining jobs just due to the customers. Good ole Corporate America ig.

…the last 10 years were real?
I left Target a while back after being a TL for over 10 years & life still feels surreal. I literally feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone because it warped my perception of/on time. It’s been a couple of years since I left, and I am still adjusting to living a life where I don’t work at my old Target.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? Is this even the right subreddit for this post?

I've been working at a dollartree for a month now, and I still feel almost depressed or anxious every day when I clock in.

I try to handle it and endure it because frankly, retail is everywhere. You're bound to work as a cashier at one point. You're bound to talk to customers that are mean and such. I mean even if it's not retail, you're always gonna experience people in your career that will make it tough I'm sure. I need this job to help for college tuition, so I try to be optimistic that I'm getting money and learning new experiences but I still feel so sad.

Every day since I've worked in September I've had dreams about ringing people up in the cashier or stocking items. I feel so anxious because of some of the people I help due to how they act, while most of the customers I've met so far have been usually nice.

I think I'm just dreading the unexpected, and what could go wrong.

Any advice on how to handle it would be appreciated, I don't want to sound overreactive and such.

Ive been working at a luxury clothing store for a year but am still looking for comfy shoes. We’re not supposed to wear running sneakers—I do anyway sometimes—so Hokas are out (and I find them too cushioned for the quick dashes I’m making around the floor).

I’ve gotten Birdies recently and some Adidas taekwondo shoes that I wear with insoles. I want something with even more support to add to my rotation. I’m looking at Birkenstocks, which I’ve been told are fine to wear, and I may leave a pair at work so I can switch between shoes. I’m looking into sebago loafers too.

I'm applying for a retail position at a handbag store and they told me it'll be 12-20 hrs a week, 4-7 shifts. Does that mean my hours and shift duration are completely up to them?

I prefer 12 hrs a week and 4 hr shifts, are they likely to accomondate that or is it usually the norm where they give me whatever and I just have to take it.

Also, is it a bad idea for someone with chronic lower back pain?

Just needed everyone who understands to laugh a minute along with me after my encounter at the grocery store.

I’m on vacation from work this week so instead of buying my meals there like I usually do or stopping quickly to grab dinner from the store on my way home I decided to make a quick run to the store for some food for the next few days after dinner this morning (3rd shifter) since I hadn’t planned this far ahead on my last shop for food.

Being I only had 9 things I went to self checkout and as I got up there the two people in front of me started walking to registers that just opened so I was patiently waiting my turn for one to open when someone came up behind me asking if they could get by.

I’m sorry but the register with the light out and no one at it wasn’t working (it was clearly visible from where I was standing), and the reason I wasn’t walking to the register with a green light on was because the person ahead of me just walked there but hadn’t started scanning anything yet, and all other registers were occupied, where’d they think they were going or think I could go so they could checkout faster?

I understand it was around 12pm and they were most likely on a lunch break or something so probably pressed for time, but no amount of rushing would open a register any faster than the people at them could checkout so what good does it do?

I swear people’s brains completely lose all common sense the minute they enter a retail store sometimes!

One bad apple.

Turns the entire bunch.

I took over a store about 60 days ago now. Its been a bumpy ride to say the least. I started with 35 employees and am now down to 10-15. I thought at first it was the old store managers culture they had left behind impacting my team to leave when I came in

This week I realized it was my one core (has been there since the old SM) assistant manager that's been stirring the pot and causing problems. She shares confidential conversations with the employees, tell them everything i know or confide in her about.... and has started a walk out with my team convincing them to quit with her and leave me stranded with like 55 days until black friday.

I won't really be hurting for associates, but... my entire management team is walking.... one was supposed to be talked to about an loss prevention issue... but she told him before I could get together with LP.... and the other is supposed to fet a talking to from my boss... but I think my asm warned him and he too is going to quit when I return to the store....

Hey everyone. I work at target as a fulfillment specialist. I’ve been there for about a month so I’m not brand new I’ve got a grasp on what I’m doing and how to do it. I’m able to pick and find OPU batches with ease I’d say the things I don’t know are maybe the small dos and donts of the job. We’re understaffed so my training lasted for about a day and half and even then my trainer left mid way because they were gonna meet their meal quota so everything I’ve learned has been from watching others and asking questions. As of recently I really thought I was getting the hang of OPU and Ship batches had no complaints from anyone thus far being able to complete the batches on time is really fun for me. But Apparently I screwed up majorly the other day for reasons that I can somewhat understand in hindsight but was never told I shouldn’t do. But the other day my team lead blew up on me she started raising her voice and all that saying what I did today was completely unacceptable and didn’t elaborate further. Now I know how to handle criticism I’m 22 and have experience with giving and receiving criticism when it’s structured and given to me but when I’m getting yelled at it feels like an attack on me personally. So when she was yelling at me I mainly took it on the chin, apologized and kept it pushing but I was hurt and I tend to work a little slower when I’m hurt but regardless i know there’s a time and place for feeling your feelings so I complete another OPU batch and seeing as she seemed really passionate about what I did wrong I didn’t want to stir up any problems. There was no one thankfully in the immediate vicinity of us that I could see when she did chew me out but she raised her voice high enough that I’m sure someone around us heard. I’m a mainly quiet and non confrontational dude I don’t really like to stand out at work and the previous jobs I’ve worked being warehouse jobs have had no complaints about my work ethic. So getting yelled at like this is pretty new to me. I know I was probably in the wrong about what I had done and maybe even deserved it. I guess to give more background at my time in fulfillment I’ll admit that I did suck balls at OPU for a little bit since this mega store is thirty minutes away from me I didn’t understand the lay out so when I was told to go into an OPU batch as you can guess I went over goal now thankfully they were understanding. My store has this rule though that if you’re going to INF an item check in with a team lead first. understandable. My batches seemed to always have atleast one item that I need to INF which resulted in me constantly asking for help finding them I could see that after a while they were starting to get fed up with me asking and since I hated seeing their reactions I made sure to double check the location areas, truck lines, possible miss placements, and return areas before asking which almost always resulted in my OPU goal coming close to red which then resulted in the TLS being more annoyed by me. But as I’ve stated previously I got the hang of it and my batches are all completed with time to spare but these small interactions beforehand have made them already a little bit annoyed with me to an extent this specific interaction I viewed as the explosion of all these tiny events from this one specific team lead. but my question is should I have just sat there and taken it? I understand that fulfillment is a highly competitive and fast paced job but regardless is this sort of reaction normal? I’m not really trying to argue I just want to understand. I know that fulfillment isn’t for everyone and it certainly isn’t for me but I want money so I’m kind of forcing it to work for me despite how much I hate it. This job is full of a lot of cliques and stuff so I know for a fact that everyone’s probably gonna talk about it and seeing as I have been unable to make any work acquaintances I’m assuming im going to be outcasted even further. I don’t really know what to do this post is somewhat a rant to get this off my chest but im also just looking for possible advice on what I should as well as methods to handling these sorts of situations I have another better paying job lined up I’m just waiting for that tentative offer before I put my two weeks in. But it would be a great reference for understanding how to handle future situations like this.

I have about 3 years total of car sales experience, I did pretty well ngl but I enjoy clothes much much more, I love fashion. How do you guys get into this? Iv applied to Gucci and Cartier and never heard anything back. Should I apply to a smaller boutique? I live in the Atlanta Market if that helps

I looked this up and found out that if other coworkers don't like working with you you can be fired for that.how is that even legal.

I work in a large pharmacy store as a merchandiser. I don't talk much so I work and I know what I am doing. Been with the company over 10 years. Now this new location I work with have a staff of people who want to get paid to sit and hide in the backroom and do nothing. Which is fine with me since I am not responsible for them. They are all mad because I won't do the same. Now they wanted me to slow down so I did and they are still on my case. They have Ben talking so much trash about me making up stories so that people will be on their side. Now the supervisor wants to get me fired because he is one of the people who wants to hide and do nothing. If the manager decides to just do it just to shut them up since I know he is not happy with their performance still I can get fired.

Is it just me or is that ridiculous. So I lose a job I enjoy just so they can get paid to be lazy.

And for anyone that says work your wage. I am working my wage, I am just not working their wage. They have no idea I make more than them and the manager told me what he expects of me during my interview and my first day.

I’m a counter manager in beauty retail. One of my associates is a total sales shark. She approaches pretty much every customer who walks by and never misses an opportunity to sell. Sometimes she’ll even approach someone again after I’ve already spoken to them. Our location isn’t very busy, so every customer matters when it comes to SPH. She’s genuinely great at selling and loves it. Her sales are consistently about 20–30% higher than mine. I’m also a selling manager, but we have very different personalities and selling styles. I’m not someone who feels the need to fight for every single customer, while she is.
The funny part is that she actually makes me look good because the counter performs better, and she’s not trying to compete with me or get my position. She just really likes selling.

My only concern is that my manager might eventually ask why my personal sales are lower than hers. I’m not sure how to explain it without sounding like I’m making excuses.

Been waiting a decade for this as their “Walmart pay” system forces you to use the app and almost never works. It’s about time! And they never had an excuse for not accepting contactless except for “we have Walmart pay”

…the last 10 years were real?
I left Target a while back after being a TL for over 10 years & life still feels surreal. I literally feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone because it warped my perception of/on time. It’s been a couple of years since I left, and I am still adjusting to living a life where I don’t work at my old Target.
Has anyone else had a similar experience? Is this even the right subreddit for this post?

Just like the title. I grew up poor, so my self worth is heavily tied to how hard I work and how I’m constantly yearning for approval and fantasy of being taken in by Corporate elites who I truly believe could not work my schedule or do my job. (Not because they can’t do the job but because they would surely move on because they feel they are better and deserve more)
Today we had the New CEO of our company visit our store. I spent the last week avoiding my family, working late, coming in early… helping everyone in my building get ready instead of just relaxing and focusing on myself and my department. The corporate team walked in today, 7-8 of them. I’ve known them for 8 years now. Shook hands, said hi. Introduced myself to the new CEO. They proceeded to spend 5 minutes walking briefly past each department. They spoke to each manager for 2-3 minutes. When they got to the edge of my department, they announced, all good. Let’s wrap it up… we are done here…. Nothing for me except hi and bye. 👋 I guess In retail that’s a good sign when they don’t dig into your department. But fuck man. How do I just stop caring and collect this easy 💰