retail store manager

Smiggle

it’s smiggle so how could you not love the idea of spending the whole day playing with the fun gadgets and toys instore to ultimately brighten a child’s day. 
but this job is not that…. you will walk into potentially the worst job you’ve ever had. 
you will learn why the staff turnover, specifically for management is so high.
there is ultimately NO SUPPORT from upper management. you will be a brand new SM. having a 16 year old who’s been there a few months show you the ropes, because the RM has no idea about your training, or care to look into your schedule. they will literally hire you to forget about you. 
you will be stuck fixing stores that haven’t had a manager for 8 months & expected to turn around the VM, KPI’s, Backroom, Store safety & LP within your first month, if not your performance reviews will slip & “retraining” is required, maybe a role switch! which just ultimately means no favouritism in the whatsapp groups! you will be outcasted. 
you will walk into a health & safety hazard, some stores across Australia are sitting on over 20000 units in stock, old stock taking 50% of you’re tiny backroom space yet you’ll be sent more & more…. and when you are in tears in your back room pleading to national management to please do a sale send out, they will ask why you aren’t pushing sales hard enough? the dfos are full! idk maybe it’s because no one can physically walk through my store without tripping on stock boxes or product stacked on the ground? 
you will ask for more hours to roster staff, more time to complete tasks, more help from someone trained in VM and managerial duties, just someone to teach you or take the pressure off the 80 things you’re required to have sent a confirmation upon completion of. but nope…. you’ll be told no. that the entire state is in the same boat and your budget is that. so you’ll stay back after hours, because your regional is passive aggressive & will guilt trip you into thinking you’re not working hard enough, you’ll exhaust yourself finishing VM updates and brief tasks. you’ll ask for a break and try to take A/L, but you’ve got more brief coming up & a new range dropping instore next week so you can’t… because you’re entire team is 16 year olds with terrible availability and no training. nothing will get done if you aren’t instore. you’ll ask to hire more staff with better availability and they’ll put an ad out for you. after you’ve argued back and forth for weeks to try justify it first, they’ll hire you someone but you can’t roster over 10 hours for that part timer, plus you’re expected to train that new team member, on top of you’re original duties. so by this point you haven’t had ANYONE in management show you how to do anything. you are behind on every single task, you’re regional and your VM give you no words of encouragement or support, they will just launch at you with negativity and anger when they can be bothered to finally answer you’re call. you’re entire team is on the verge of leaving because the pressure of hitting those insanely high KPI’s drives you and your team insane. OH & by this point your regional finally comes in for a store visit….. only to tell you everything that’s wrong…. everything you’re doing wrong…. every single thing that could just be better? 
you’ll get a small “well done” “looks great”.  
i swear i would not have stayed longer than a month if it wasn’t for the managers in surrounding stores. your saving grace is the people working the exact same role as you, they feel the pain & use eachother to lean on. the support i felt with my sister stores made it all worth it. my incredible team of absolute super stars who reminded me everyday this is nothing more than BACKPACKS & LUNCHBOXES. it does come to an end. you will lose your motivation one day & on that day it just isn’t worth it anymore…. 

The management here is awful! I got hired as a casual but at most i’d get 9 hours a week (3hr shifts). There were some weeks I got 0 hours. I only stayed for a year because they promised after i’d be able to become a part time employee. It never happened. They just used me as a call in person when it was convenient to them. I worked really hard and was basically doing everything a manager would do (when I got hours lol). The managers would play favourites which is completely unfair! No one would believe me either. “whoever works up to my standards the best gets more hours” was basically how the place was ran even though you’re mean to evenly distribute the hours between the casuals. we were all hired because we all work good and got everything done. so toxic. spent more hours crying about how they treated me than hours I actually got given. 

I spent 3 years at Smiggle and found as a sales assistant that the job is fun, busy and everyday is different. The pay as a casual is great! However managers are discouraged from giving many hours or putting them on public holidays. As a manager it really depends on your store team and your regional. In my experience the communication between me and my regional broke down completely resulting in me leaving a job I loved. The work is full on, lots of manual labour, visual merchandising is a big part of the job, stock doesnt stop especially in summer but its all a lot of fun! The customers are always great, the stock is beautiful and so much fun to get interactive with! Manager pay is okay considering youre working 38 hours. Theres always some sort of dress up day or friendly store competition and the discount is great - 50%!

You’ll be expected to do a million jobs a day, constant changes in brief, the pay is shocking considering the amount of tasks you undertake every single day,  and they’ll promise career growth that will never come. You’ll be stuck doing the same thing every day and when you express boredom and wanting to be promoted, you’ll be swept under the rug and forgotten about. The store managers are so competitive with eachother, teams not willing to help out to cover understaffed stores. The KPI culture is so pressured that some store managers will threaten disciplinary action if you don’t meet your KPI’s which is insane. You’re expected to pick up any and every shift - they do not care about work life balance at all. The store comes first all the time. 

Working for Smiggle as a retail assistant has both its ups and downs, but overall is a great company to work for. As it is part of the just group it is very easy to advance into other roles, not only in Smiggle, but the other brands that are also part of the Just Group. 

It is a very fun, but also fast paced job and is vital to know your product knowledge and have excellent customer service, and you must have lots of patience as the store is always filled with children as they are our biggest customer. My co-workers are great and I get along with everyone really well which makes the job very enjoyable.

The negatives are that you work most weekends and during Christmas and New Years as it the busiest time of the year. It is also very hard to take leave during that time.

My store manager and team are the most wonderful people and they are what make the job bearable. Smiggle’s higher up don’t care about any feedback or opinions you have, the pay is not great, the only way to advance is to wait for someone to leave, the work load is far beyond what they pay you for and the amount of paperwork they make you do is ridiculous. They don’t allow many hours or staff in stores so when someone is sick or on leave it’s hard to cover the store. The expections is ridiculously high and you are never praised for the effort you put in. The products are very over priced and even with discount it’s way more than I could ever spend on the dismal salary I’m paid. Unless you have a good team it’s not a great company to work for. 

A typical day at work would be reviewing your sales brief, doing stock, handling cash at register, making sure to achieve your KPI's and store budget. Interacting with customers, restocking and if you are PIC (Person in charge) you would have to do things like banking, emails, visual merchandising (according to the brief). 

There are busy periods but during quiet times of the year the stress is up, (and if you continuously don't make budget or KPI's then your management will not be happy!)  because making budget it difficult depending on which store location you work at and the levels of stock.

Its all worth it, dealing with karens and difficult days, because your team is usually very friendly. 

PROS
- Most enjoyable part was my bosses and coworkers, friendly environment to work in at Smiggle Epping!!!
- The staff made me feel very welcome, were so helpful and kind
- The products are fun! 
- The kids having fun in the store!

CONS
- The pay isn't worth what the work load is
- Too much stock. You'll be opening boxes of stock EVERYDAY, trying to fit them all on the shelfs. 
- Constant changes in brief.
- The training is nonexistent, learn as you go.
- Customer's wont bother to read the signs, then ask you how much everything is.
- The products are very over priced and even with discount.
- Very busy back to school and Christmas

A typical day at Smiggle always started with counting the till and tidying the store ready for customers. We always maintained postivie attitudes and communicated with other staff members. One of the challanges in the store was trying to help people who did not speak English. Being at the airport we had many non-English speaking customers and language barriers usually came up. However, this also made each day interesting and kept us motivated to give great customer service. I enjoyed this a lot while I was employed.

I didn't work here for very long because I was only a Christmas casual but it was my first job and I am very thankful for it.

They would get me to stock shelves, serve on the register, organise the back room, unpack new stock and clean the place. 

I learned how to use a cash register and an eftpos machine and I definitely learned how to interact with customers.

The management was great and they always made me feel comfortable.

the hardest part of the job was leaving because it was so fun.

The most enjoyable part of the job was getting in new stock and also the people I worked with.

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