These days, some people view holiday shopping as a sport or game: collecting the best coupons, sussing out the best deals, beating the crowds, picking the right stores at the right time, suriving the long lines without having to use the bathroom… It takes physical and mental strength, right? If shopping is your game, this is your season. So lace up your comfy shoes, fire up your shopping smart phone apps, and enjoy.
One thing I will ask you to keep in mind this season is that there are no extra points or bonus credits for ripping apart retail employees in the course of your shopping. They are not your enemy, there’s no need to treat them as such. I’ve assembled a list of five things you may not know about retail employees which I hope encourages you to spread a little more holiday spirit and little less retail rage when you shop this season.
1. Retail employees work insane hours.
In the somewhat fictional, sepia-toned time of Norman Rockwell’s painting of an improbably large and perfect Thanksgiving turkey, the only people working on this holiday were police officers, firefighters, hospital workers, and other essential workers, most of whom got holiday pay for sacrificing their “family time for the greater good. In our high-definition, modern reality, Thanksgiving seems to have become yet another meal we rush through in order to get to something else. That ‘something else’ being a sale on the latest gaming console at the local electronics store that requires you to line up at 5pm for the 10pm store opening. Think about it: if you’re in line at 5pm on Thanksigiving, and the store opens at 10pm on Thanksgiving, it means that dozens of employees who work at that store were there all day, stocking, cleaning, and getting the store ready for you. They didn’t eat Thanksgiving dinner and they will likely be there for most of the night and into the following day. For some, they’ll get six to eight hours off, to eat, sleep, change, etc. before they need to be back again for the next shift. No one gets Black Friday off, not if they want to keep their jobs.
And Black Friday is just the start. Most stores have extended hours throughout the holiday season. That means closing at 11pm, restocking through the night and re-opening at 7am for nearly eight weeks. If the person ringing up your purchase looks a little bleary-eyed, this is why.
2. Retail salaries are low, with very few benefits.
Sure the hours are insane, but retail workers get paid well to compensate, right? Wrong. Labor unions are non-existent at the major retailers these days so there’s very little pressure for national retailers to pay very much above minimum wage. That fact, coupled with high unemployment, means that there is no shortage of new workers to replace the ones who complain, burnout, or get fired. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average non-commissioned retail sales employee makes just over $9 per hour with few, if any, benefits to boost their overall compensation.
Most retailers manage their employee payrolls systematically to keep the majority of their employees just under the threshold for which the law demands that the employees be given medical and other benefits. So that means if you work full-time and have medical coverage, the person waiting on you in your favorite store works one or two hours less per week and gets none.
Most retail employees are eligible for a modest employee discount at the stores where they work, often between 10% and 15%. However, these days, any savvy online shopper with a good search engine can match or exceed that on any given sale day so can it really be called a perk?
3. Retail workers do not order stock or set the sales.
So your favorite store put ads out everywhere touting the fact that they will have half-price Whatevers on sale starting at 11pm on Thanksgiving night. Those Whatevers are sooooooo expensive and hard to find, so you get yourself there, line up in the cold, and have your credit card at the ready. But cue sad trombone, the ad didn’t exaclty say that each store was only getting two of said Whatevers and the extreme couponer in line ahead of you got them both. So what now? Well, if you’re like most people, you march over to the first store employee you see and you tear them a new one, right?
Um…why exactly? Let’s think about this. Did the store employee you’re ripping apart actually order the shipment of Whatevers from China? Did he or she actually decide that each store would only get two? Did he or she decide how much the discount would be? The answer to all of those is almost certainly no. Let’s get this straight, the people who make ordering, shipping, and cost decisions for major retailers make way more than $9 per hour, don’t wear logo imprinted polo shirts, and are sure as Hell not going to be in a store on 11pm on Thanksgiving night. Store employees, even store managers have no say in these decisions. The stores are expected to execute sales directives, make sales goals, and keep costs down. That’s it. Even if the employee you tear apart passes on your complaint to the “higher ups†it’s likely to get lost in the internal bureacracy because corporate offices never take employee complaints seriously.
If you have a complaint, make it to corporate yourself. Do it publicly on their Facebook page or to their Twitter account. The likelihood for real change or compensation is much higher.
4. If they could open more registers, they would. Seriously.
Long retail lines during the holiday season are a fact of life but isn’t it infuriating when there are eight registers and only four of them are open? I completely agree! Someone get me the store manager so I can tell him or her that this simply cannot be tolerated. Yes, the same store manager who has no power in the corporate structure and whose promotion to store manager likely meant that he or she gets to work twice as many hours for a fixed salary instead of an hourly rate with some overtime. The store manager who is given a strict holiday payroll budget in September which is based on maxmizing profits, not on customer service. Give it a shot. You can certainly make your opinions known. You can even yell or scream a bit. It’s not going to be the first time this manager has gotten yelled at today and it probably won’t be the last. It also probably won’t get any more registers open either. My advice, shop early in the morning or later in the day on weekdays, as store hours allow. The lines will be shorter.
5. Retail workers have not declared “war†on Christmas, they have to follow a script.
Thanks to the modern innovation that is mystery shopping, almost every second of your three-to-five minute interaction at the cash register of a major retailer is now scripted. They have to ask you if you found everything you need (even though there’s not much they can do if you didn’t), they have to pitch you on the store credit card (even though the last thing they want to do with a long line of customers is check your credit), and they have to give you a cheery greeting and farewell (even though they’re probably so tired they can’t remember what year it is). The fact that the last item may be “Happy Holidays†instead of “Merry Christmas†or whatever seasonal holiday you enjoy, is not their choosing. The corporate office likely wrote the script based on focus group research and whole bunch of other factors that have nothing to do with the person packing up your newly purchased sweaters. The employees have to follow it to the letter or they can be fired or, at best, lose any slim hope they have of bonus pay. So feel free to reply “Merry Christmas†in your snottiest voice at the employee who tells you to have a “Happy Holiday.†That embodies to spirit of the season and will likely make their day.
Or you could both just say “have a nice day†and mean it.
Bottom line: it’s all about profits.
I know it sounds like I’m going out of my way to make excuses for retail employees and I admit to being somewhat biased. I managed a retail shopping mall for three years. While there are lousy retail employees out there (I certainly fired my share), the vast majority just want to do their jobs well, earn their pay, and support their families. They don’t want to make your lives harder nor do they want to ruin your holiday. They rely on shoppers and need you to come back. Unfortunately, most of the key decisions that impact the shoppping experience are made by people who don’t set foot in the stores at all, let alone during the holiday season. Keep in mind, most major retailers in this country are publically traded companies. A successful holiday season for them maximizes profits to shareholders, not positive experiences for customers. It’s not likely to change until customers remind them, en masse, that the two are not mutally exclusive.
Happy Shopping!