Uncommon Goods reviews

3.7

66% would recommend to a friend

(188 total reviews)

David Bolotsky

80% approve of CEO

38% positive business outlook

Uncommon Goods has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 188 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Uncommon Goods employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

188 reviews
3.0
Mar 18, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

>The people are great. Best part of the company. >Casual dress code. >The company tries its best to "give back." Always proud to say this. >I genuinely think the CEO is a great guy, just a little lost with the company's direction and has a disconnect with others. >Exciting to be surrounded around lots of interesting items. >Did I mention that the people are awesome?

Cons

>Location. The walk from the subway to the offices is HORRIBLE. Worst part of my day. Also, have fun finding a decent place to eat for lunch. >They pretend they care about work-life balance - but in the end, they honestly don't. >The company has an identity crisis. They want to appeal to everyone. Marketing 101: choose your audience! >They don't pay their full time employees the amount a NYC professional should be paid. Several people leave the company and find a job in that same field in NYC for 10-20k more. They lowball you as much as possible. They do a lot of talk about bringing up the minimum wage for hourly workers (which is great) but when it comes to their full time employees - it's like pulling teeth to just get a simple increase in pay. Loyalty of staying with the company for years means nothing to them - they would rather let you go, hire someone else who accepts the low ball salary - before giving you the salary you deserve. (Also heard this from multiple people from different departments.) I'm sure they give all their higher up managers a decent pay because if they leave everything would go crazy. But everyone else...peanuts. >They don't take risks at all. There's a lot of "we should do this and that" but "this and that" never, ever happens. It's all talk. >The website is very old fashioned compared to other e-commerce sites. The creative team does a great job with images and the direction they receive, but in the end, the overall template is very bland. >They want to market towards a younger audience but won't make any major changes to the type of products they curate and the marketing strategies aren't very dynamic. >Individual face-to-face time with employees are great but for some reason during the day when everyone is sitting together at their desks the mood is very awkward and gloomy. >A huge part of their profit is still dependent on catalogs. A bit bizarre and scary. >I would recommend this place to a friend only if they didn't have any other great prospects. But with that recommendation, I would have about 20 warnings along with it.

5.0
Mar 9, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

This place puts high value on the employee experience and the customer experience. This is the only place I've worked where what the CEO says and what he tries to do is the same thing. The managers are patient and helpful (though sometimes stressed) and they hired a great seasonal team, including me! Everyone I met during my time at UG was kind and friendly, no matter how busy the day became.

Cons

I wish that I could have stayed past December, but the business slows down tremendously after Christmas.

1.0
Mar 5, 2015

Work like a slave, make slave wages

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Eventually they fire you for no reason but "business"

Cons

long hours lack of organization weird vibe of "you deserve your crappy life" cult like following of CEO

avatar
Uncommon Goods Response
11y
Thank you for your feedback. Our top goal is to unify our company around a single vision and set of outcomes, which we believe starts by treating each individual with dignity and respect. In order to do so, we offer a starting wage far exceeding the minimum wage, have company snacks and lunches monthly, and offer fresh fruit daily. Although it is unclear which department you worked in or which role you filled in your limited time with us, what is clear is that the culture you experienced is one that is counter to what we strive for at UncommonGoods. We clearly fell short of our own expectations here, but are developing new initiatives and programs to help our future seasonal team members earn larger wages and the opportunity to speak with local career service organizations. Our biggest challenge remains providing a great experience for our seasonal workforce. With 5-fold growth in our team in an 8-week time frame, this remains a work in progress. We’ve made a big investment in training and development and strengthening our management team and the experience gets better each year. Anytime we fall short, we want to hear about it and, while we’d prefer to have someone speak to their manager or our HR team, we appreciate the opportunity to respond to this post.
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Glassdoor has 268 Uncommon Goods reviews submitted anonymously by Uncommon Goods employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Uncommon Goods is right for you.