SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CAREERS : WHERE THE JOBS ARE : The Field of Retail Sales Is Ringing Up Gains
The unemployment office is losing one of its best suppliers: the retail industry.
The recession and restructuring woes that led to so many retail layoffs in recent years are largely gone. As a result, the retail business during the next decade will find itself in the happy role of job creator, with employment growing an estimated 23% between 1992 and 2005, according to U.S. Labor Department estimates.
Job growth is expected in a wide variety of positions, but one of the hottest jobs in the store will be that of--no kidding--sales associate.
“Retail clearly is an industry that is growing. There’s a lot of opportunity,” said Robert Hall, vice president of the National Retail Federation, a trade group based in Washington.
“There will be some growth at the headquarters office, but the real explosion of growth will be on the sales floor,” Hall said.
Industry experts insist that sales associates are metamorphosing beyond the minimum wage-paying foot soldier of the retail wars, the sort of careless refugee from the unemployment line with little talent for sales and even less interest in the customer.
As retailers launch yet another of their perennial pushes to improve customer service, they say they are creating a sort of “super sales associate” who roams the store to find the best way to serve clients. The most successful among them generally work on commission and are being well rewarded financially. Many are making a career of it.
Leslie Kaufman is one of this breed.
Kaufman is among the top sellers in the Nordstrom chain; in 1992, she was the best of the best, moving $1.3 million in merchandise. Kaufman works at Nordstrom’s Westside Pavilion store in men’s suits--at least, that’s what her bosses think.
In reality, Kaufman traipses all over the store gathering shirts, ties, socks and accessories to coordinate with a just-purchased suit.
“This is my little corner of the world,” said Kaufman, a former teacher who has been a sales pro for the last 16 years. “This company provides me with every tool I need to basically run my own business.”
Kaufman said her father, who worked in retail his whole life, jokes that his daughter single-handedly sells more in one year that an entire store did in his day.
“This is my career,” Kaufman said. “I went in with the attitude that I was going to be the best I could be.”
Kaufman does it with an almost obsessive attention to detail and by treating her “gentlemen” in a manner to which they have not been accustomed.
She maintains a “personal book” listing a myriad of details about her clients, including sizes, colors and designer preferences. (“It’s like a Bible to me,” she says.) She calls special customers when certain shipments arrive. She sends thank-you notes. She ships out 1,500 hand-signed invitations to Nordstrom’s “half yearly” sales. She remembers birthdays.
And the bulk of her customers in a given day have asked specifically for her.
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“I have a marvelous clientele,” Kaufman said. “Even when the recession hit Los Angeles, I was treated very loyally by my clientele.”
Nordstrom sales associates make an average income of $24,000, although a “good pool” earns between $30,000 and $40,000 and “a handful” hovers at the six-figure mark, said spokeswoman Caroline Brown. They also enjoy full benefits, profit sharing and a 401k retirement plan. Only 38% of the sales force is employed part time.
At Nordstrom and many of the mid- to higher-end retailers, sales associates usually work on commission or on a combination of salary and commission. That means the more they sell, the more they earn. The potential for high incomes is not as promising at salary-based retailers. The overall average salary for full-time retail sales people is less than $20,000 a year, according to the Labor Department.
The job of sales associate remains a good entry point into the retail business for those interested in management or buyer/merchandiser jobs.
Nordstrom’s management employees have all come up through the ranks, said Joe Demarte, vice president of personnel. One local store manager took a temporary sales job during Christmas break from college several years ago and never left.
“Our growth will be in new stores and most of our opportunities, most of our jobs, will be in sales,” Demarte said.
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The National Retail Federation, with the help of a Labor Department grant, is developing a set of job standards for professional sales people, said Kathy Mannes, a project coordinator for the trade organization. The group also is considering starting a credential program that would be transferable from store to store.
“We’ve met people making six figures in all kinds of stores, but that’s because they really stayed with it,” Mannes said. “We’re really talking about a professional sales associate, a committed long-term employee who is empowered by their employer in terms of customer service.”
