Pros
Pretty generous employee discount, you get 30% off anything in-store, or you can place an order for just about any shoe at wholesale price (generally half off), plus you get a free pair of shoes every calendar year and two pairs of shoes at 30% off wholesale price. One of the biggest perks as far as discount goes is being able to combine employee discount with sales going on in-store (which is constant). You don't find that at many retailers. Twice a year there is a semi-annual event called "style and savings" where the entire store is 20% off to customers, which means the entire store, even sale merchandise, is 50% off to employees. Needless to say, very generous discount. High commission rate (although necessary considering your staggeringly low hourly rate), 6% on shoes and 10% on all accessories. Your entire job is (on the surface) focused around selling, and selling multiple pairs of shoes in one transaction, or "multis", are a huge part of that. The company does however make it very easy to sell in multiples, with all of the constant promotions going on throughout the store. Also, for every two-pair sale you have, you earn an additional $2 toward your paycheck. As your number of shoes goes up in a sale, so does your multi-money. If you sell 4 pairs of shoes in one sale, you earn an additional $5 on top of the commission from the sale. You only earn this collective money, however, if you maintain a 30% multiple score throughout your week. However this is fairly easy to accomplish, given all of the aforementioned promotions going on daily. With the mention of required percentage goals, I should mention that you are expected to hit certain weekly goals, as follows (these are minimum and certain districts goals vary): 30% multi, 12% accessory, 10% leather goods (purses, wallets), 3% sock, 10% shoe tree, and 10% belt. Now, these goals are expected, but are not incredibly enforced. I've worked for other retailers who would nearly have you fired for missing one single goal I've mentioned in a week's time, but from my experience, Clarks is fairly easy-going and understanding in this area. The ability to haggle with customers is very encouraging and often times fun. If you are sales-oriented then it can be a fun game to see how much you can bargain with a customer to get them to purchase certain items. This "haggling" or "bargaining" is done through possibly offering customers coupons that are in circulation that they might not know about, or even the basic 15% customer survey coupon that is offered at the bottom of every receipt that the company keeps absolutely no track of. Again, this makes it easy to hit the aforementioned goals, including your multi goal, which is what matters most as an employee, because that's the goal you're earning the most money from, generally speaking. Definitely a company that has historically catered to an older crowd, but is realizing the changing scope of the world around them, and is starting to shift its aim to include younger generations as well. If you're a shoe lover, there's always something cool going on that will peak your interest. The company has definitely garnered interest from a more hip crowd the past few years, partnering with edgy, sought-after designers like Supreme and KithNYC. The only downside is with most of these super cool, hard-to-obtain shoes is that company employees don't necessarily have access to order them, as Clarks is just "partnered" with the designer, not the other way around. Still exciting to see the company getting into other markets other than QVC and the Geritol community. Always an opportunity for advancement, as long as you're willing to bite the bullet and accept anything the company throws at you. This could be seen as either a pro or a con. Biggest pro for me personally: you get paid weekly, once every Friday. Seriously, for all the problems I have with the company, this is probably what has kept me here for this long. Such a breath of fresh air when coming from any other typical retailer who all pay bi-weekly. So much easier to manage your money.
Cons
Here comes the fun part: Hours and work/life balance are without a doubt the biggest complaint I have with this company. As just a full-time sales associate, you are expected to work a minimum 45 hours a week. This doesn't sound that outrageous when considering a normal full-time workweek is 40 hours, but normal retail scheduling does not fully support a 45 hour workweek. I have worked in two different stores with Clarks, and the manager within each store has one singular way they schedule to hit your 45 hour quota while still being able to have two days off a week: if you're opening, you work 9:45-8. If you close, you work 11-9:15. And the only alternative shift outside of a Sunday shift from 11:30-6:15 is 9:45-9:15 (open to close), which is only an hour shorter than a normal weekday shift. This leads to an incredibly draining workweek that you are expected to follow week in and week out with no complaints. This is especially draining during slower periods, where (in my current store, at least), you may have days where you only sell a couple hundred dollars (translation 2-4 pairs of shoes) in an entire day's shift. Talk about a slow-moving day when you're there for 10-12 hours. I was literally told by my manager when I explained that there are other companies that I have worked for that paid me the same, if not more, yet I only worked 35 hours on average a week, and this manager informed me, and I quote: "45 hours a week isn't that much, and as you grow older, you're only going to have to work more hours, so you better get used to it now." Quite discouraging, to say the least. Speaking of 10-12 hours, you could possibly land in a low-volume store like I did, where you are staffed very thinly, and as such, on days like I mentioned above where you are only planned to go against $400, you might be scheduled by yourself for the entire day, with no help whatsoever. On these days, you are expected to take no lunch breaks, no 15 minute sit-downs, nothing. Another thing that goes along with the awful scheduling is the pay structure. If you interview and are offered a salary of $30,000 per year, there is absolutely nothing saying you will definitely make that number, although you are convinced during your interview that it is a certainty. Your pay is contingent upon so many variables that making any money at all above minimum wage is not guaranteed. Most full-time employees come in making somewhere around $1.50-$2.10 per hour, plus 6% commission on shoes and 10% on accessories, plus any multi-money you accrue through a week. This can either be very good or very bad, depending on the traffic you see throughout the week, or the number of people working in your store that you compete for sales with. Essentially you are paid like a server at a restaurant, where if no one comes in to eat at your tables, you make no money. Along with your pay goes your responsibilities. Full-time associates are expected to perform nearly every function an assistant manager would perform, including opening and closing the store and any necessary steps that are involved with that. Full time salespeople are also expected to assist with opening and receiving in freight on a daily basis, which sometimes can be up to 40 boxes, each containing about 12 pairs of shoes. Imagine this happening on a day where you are working by yourself, with no help, and while you are selling to no one you are making $1.50 per hour. Not very rewarding, and very degrading to morale. Full time associates making $1.50 an hour (when not selling) can also be expected to come in up to four hours before the store opens to perform functions such as inventory prep, and the actual inventory itself. Another demoralizing action taken by the company is staffing. Store managers are not allowed to hire/release any employees without direct approval of a district manager, and as such, stores are often left very understaffed for long periods of time. In my store alone, I've seen my manager have to go to another Clarks store in town to cover as manager for weeks at a time when managers or assistant managers would quit, leaving our assistant manager to run every aspect of our own store in the meantime, understaffed for weeks at a time. One thing that should be mentioned is that even if you move up to a higher position like an assistant manager, it might not equal more pay. The assistant manager in my store is "exempt" from overtime pay, so when our manager is away covering at other stores, or on vacation, the assistant is expected to perform every major managerial function and make sure the store is running smoothly and efficiently, often while understaffed, all while having to try to focus on their own sales goals. I've experienced weeks where this assistant manager worked over 60 hours in one week and made $7.25 for every single hour worked. Seems like these types of actions should be illegal, or at least unacceptable from a company that's been around as long as Clarks. Lastly, one more major complaint I have is the music that is played throughout the stores. This might sound like a petty complaint but when you are at a store nearly open to close every day you work, the music that is drilled into your head becomes a huge factor of your morale. The company has historically and still mostly does cater to a demographic of women between the ages of 40-99, and the music that plays is reflective of that. Pretty much all the music you hear will be one hit wonders from the 70s/80s, and almost nothing contemporary, with a circulation of about the same 15 songs repeated on a cycle daily. It's maddening.
