Pros
Absolutely fantastic people work in the stores - you'll make some of the greatest friends you will ever have here. Great discount, lots of free shoes, super fun to be in the meat of the Boston running community if that's your thing. Laidback culture.
Cons
Extremely poor upper management that is very disconnected from the day-to-day activities in the store. The owner - Colin - is a straight-up disgrace. Few employees actually like and respect him. His lack of willingness to innovate and modernize with the market will eventually cost him big time, which one would think he would care more about because all he sees is $$$$$. Pay here is LOW. They struggle constantly with hiring and retention because they insist on paying full-time employees like high school kids. There is not a single in-store position in the entire company that pays enough for someone to live comfortably in the Boston area. You're better off working at a grocery store. Very fratty culture at times. If the company wasn't an Amazon seller I doubt they would survive. After Covid hit, they eliminated the little training offerings they already had for new employees and store managers are very obviously uninterested in training any new people, so we continuously see the in-store experience degrade. Upper management is fixated on selling inserts and socks while avoiding other core issues that will be the downfall of Marathon Sports. Opportunities for growth are few and far between and involve taking on extreme stress and responsibility - again for very low pay. Many, many top-down issues, and I'm not totally convinced that the brick-and-mortar stores will be able to survive it in the long run. Marathon Sports has relied on a good reputation to survive, but that reputation is fading and fading fast. New runners in the Boston area would rather stick to cool, hip running stores like Heartbreak Hill and Tracksmith for running acumen.