retail sales associate

sales associate

store manager

sales assistant

Sunglass Hut

This is for West Coast, My region was small so I'm not putting my exact location!

As a store manager for sunglass Hut you are expected to lead your sales team and be the highest volume member, you are expected to be on top of your paperwork of which there is a considerable amount and always more added by the company, you are also expected to keep your store in a perfect condition with all merchandise displayed properly and up-to-date signage, you are expected to find time to coach your associates of which you only have a grand total of 15 minutes of overlap due to constantly decreasing hours, you are expected to be the front line in terms of dealing with angry customers due to company negligence, bad policy, faulty glasses or covering for comically terrible company customer support, you were expected to do all of this with little to no training or oversight. The only time management will get involved is when you mess something up, you are also expected to train other managers communally and you are routinely encouraged to call around for help this has the positive effect of having your coworkers be some of the nicest people you will ever meet it's just unfortunate that the company takes advantage of that. 

Of course this is my experience, It depends heavily on where your store is located, upper management could be either fantastic and go out of their way to help you or be the first ones to knock you down if you or your store fails to meet expectations there is no in-between. 

Speaking of expectations, nothing is ever good enough they will always raise your goals and raise your kpis. Good luck getting a raise because it is completely tied to your store's performance on an arbitrary five-point scale (last raise I got was years before I left and it was measured in CENTS, and I know multiple managers that have gone YEARS without a raise)

I knew managers that had been with the company for decades that were making less than fresh hire managers.  

Company would intentionally make policies that cause a drop in sales performance and then take it out on the managers by docking their five point score so that getting a raise is not even remotely a possibility. 

Now let's talk about assistant positions, when I first started there were plenty of supervisory and even assistant manager sales positions whose sole purpose was to aid and alleviate stress from the store manager. 

However the company routinely removes these positions only to then reinstate them 6 to 12 months later, only to then remove them again and so on. 

Sunglass Hut used to be a fantastic place to work but now it is just another corporate race to the bottom. 

Most corporate policies and implementations I'm sure are fantastic for shareholders while being absolutely detrimental to managers and customers. It seems that the company is steaming towards making things as cheap as possible while making the customer's life miserable with bad product and the manager's life miserable with impossible goals and a completely stagnant paycheck, completely filling up their plate so that they are doing the jobs of three different people, All the while cutting what little scraps of hours we have. 

If you do take this position be prepared to meet some of the kindest most patient people, as well as be forced to deal with some of the most incompetent policies and implementation you have ever thought. 


While you will enjoy learning about the brands and product technology, There is a lot you have to learn very quickly because you will be thrown in the deep end, and believe me, the customers are extremely unforgiving while you are learning which just causes you to crumble emotionally. 

The computer system looks like it was made in 1987, there are always unexplained problems with it that prompt you to ring the managers on their days off which leads to awkward video calls showing them the screen while they talk you through it and the already annoyed customer is standing there huffing and puffing which just makes it more stressful , the shifts are very casual and not enough to survive off, and the inventory counting is a massive up-keep which I never understood because that's the whole point of stocktake, and every thing is insured anyway. 

The customers here are the worst; They try to bully you into bending the rules for them, they are always sarcastic and have attitudes, they try to intimidate you, even stooping low enough to come around the counter and stand really close to your face or follow you out the back to continue yelling at you because you told them you can't give them a discount for a promotion that has ended.

This often resulted in me having severe panic attacks and making numerous errors.
I have dealt with angry customers before, but working here was something no one had prepared me for. 

If you can survive this, I applaud you.
 

You are working as a manager, you are made to do dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, emptying the bin and cleaning the lenses. 
You are not given any time to have mini breaks to give your feet any rest. 
Moreover, there is no back room or chair or toilet or even drinking water availability for the employees.
The 30 mins break includes going exactly on time and coming back exactly within 30 mins and the break is UNPAID! You do not even get time to buy or finish your meal and of course you cannot drink or eat on the shop floor!
The management is not at all employee-centric and a minute mistake could lead to losing the job.
The pay is extremely low even though you are a manager, you are treated like a salesperson or an associate.
The team trying to train you (as the training is not really professional) is not at all helpful or motivating. Rather would update the management even of the slightest things.
The employees already in the company know exactly where to use their personal gadgets and use the company's system and iPad to have access to their personal social media, so that they are not visible on CCTV that area manager has access to.
The basic, area manager takes months to respond and is not really approachable. Not at all friendly and understanding. Even the basic interview process took the area manager more than a month to respond.
Overall, working in Sunglass Hut is not worth it.

To start the morning shift of the day, I arrived at the store at 6 a.m and start to do cash float and hash count of stock after I pumped the music (which is very important to me), and then check up if there is any notes or messages left by night-shift colleague. Cleaning up the store and the sunnies is an important duty throughout the day, the store has to be tidy up and organized. Customers started to walk in and this is the hardest part and also the most enjoyable part of my job since sales industry is all about meeting customers, helping them with the right choices and making them satisfied of what they had chosen. After a few hours my co-workers will start the shift and we log onto our email and start to greet our colleagues from other stores around Australia. We talked about funny stories happened to us and doing stock transfer and check through phone. Moreover, we share our KPI and sales progress on the email, to encourage and compete with each other. I learnt a lot from work in terms of customer service and store management, and colleagues and managers are kind. It was happy to be one of them and work in such a nice environment.

A typical day at my work is your by yourself for couple hours just walking around the shop constantly cleaning glasses not doing much, waiting for someone to come in, but when some one does come in its great fun. The shop is located in a very dead end of the mall, so don't get many people through depending on the certain times of the year ie; Summer is obviously great, winter sucks. Get a lot of interesting characters walk past or come into the shop and definitely some dodgy people that try to steal from us..  
I've definitely learned heaps working at sunglass hut, improved my social skills, communication, time management and working with money/banking and dealing with personal information of customers. The workplace and work people are great fun and so nice and friendly i do love working with people rather than myself but at the moment cant change that.  Hardest part of the job for me is dealing with the people that try to come in and steal glasses. Enjoyable bits are when we make sales or have happy chatty customers, or manage to make the weekly budget.

I had a nice, approachable Area Manager which made things easier. Negatives: no toilet on site so had to shut the store to go to the toilet, and often work alone so a bit inconvenient. OPSM was right next door and used to steal sales from us most days by getting us to spend alot of one on one time with a customer, help them choose a pair of sunglasses, then ask to transfer them next door. I made the mistake of standing up to them and after that they had it in for me... It got quite nasty. Other than that, I liked the product, you got very good discounts (especially as Store Manager), casual rate of pay is good, Store Managers don't get much but it's a great job, not too fast paced or stressful. Can get boring in the cooler months when not many people are buying sunglasses. I would work there again (if not near an OPSM) 

This job was, for the most part, accomidating, fun and engaging. The other employees were very laid back without sacrificing effenciency and it all made for a productive but low stress environment. The customers were sometimes cranky, as is common for retail, but overall they were understanding and patient. At worst sometimes the sales goals were a lot higher than we could manage, but that just made it all the more satisfying when we made budget.

However, corperate fired me because I was going to visit my overseas family during Christmas - the family whom I won't have seen in over a year by then. The manager was very apologetic and kind. She offered to be a great reference for me, but I still left the job with a bad taste in my mouth because they FIRED me from my casual position for wanting to take a week off work to see my family 4 months from now!

Without that unfortunate ending (which was at no fault of the in-store manager or other employees) I would have given this job a much higher rating.

A typical day at work could range anywhere from quiet to extremely busy. Responsibilities included interacting with customers, handling cash, keeping the store clean and arranging stock. The manager/assistant manager were very helpful to me and were friendly and approachable, as were all of my co-workers. The hardest part of the job was the week around Christmas when the store was particularly busy, but as a team you learn to work together and be efficient. The most enjoyable part of the job was definitely the friendly people I got to work with, not to mention the great benefits and allowances given to me as an employee.

Working at Luxottica Sunglass Hut is enjoyable every step of the way. Staff and management are all lovely and great to work with. 
A typical day in the Kiosk involves serving customers (new and returning) over the phone and face to face, providing them with product and policy knowledge and assisting them with choosing the pair of glasses that most suit them. Performing sales transactions both cash and card, cleaning stock and display cases, receiving and processing new shipments, and finalising revenue counts and banking. There is an ever ongoing myriad of things to learn at Luxottica, which I greatly look forward to.

The branch that I worked at had a fantastic manager which made the work environment super fun and not stressful. There were busy and down times, with not much to do in the down times so I appreciated my kind manager. When we switched managers the store culture shifted and became a lot more stressful and competitive and about making sales only. Seemed like upper management/head office were putting a lot of pressure on them which carried over to the casuals. Good in terms of commission and sunglass allowances.

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