ill dressed department store emplyees - Page 3

I really think Mcbrown hit the nail on the head. I've worked in and out of sales for the last 10 years of my life, at BB, Banana Republic, at an upscale mens clothing store, cars, and now at a large higher level department store. 99% of the customers dont' care if the suit is canvased or not. If there is handwork. What brand it is. Price is the biggest factor usually. They shop for what they like and your job is to sell it to them. Most of the time it is the women choosing. It's really that you lack sales experience. I know it sucks not getting jobs but retail is an unforgiving business. It doesn't pay well most of the time and you are stuck working weekends and holidays. Is that something you want?

My advice to you is to go to a place Nordstroms and apply for a non sales job. Somewhere you have experience. They often move people around at the bigger places. This way you get to see how retail works from the other side (believe me it is much different) and see if it will be a fit for you. Someone in management will take notice once you've planted that seed that you want to be in sales. It may take some time but if you really want it go for it.
Edited by demeis - 11/8/11 at 3:37pm

I did misinterpret your meaning and I do agree. I worked with a lot of guys like that...they didn't care about their appearance and its a big reason why they did not get promoted to high profile departments with more customer interaction. Customers who spend lots of money on clothing do not want a slob to help dress them.

Maybe his angle is that he was even fatter and is on his way down thanks to the ab machine. Although part of being a good salesman is knowing your product like the back of your hand, a deficit in this area can be outweighed by skill in the many other areas that go into making a good salesman. Look at it this way, if you can't look someone in the eye, give them a smile and a nice hand shake, no matter how much you think you know, no one will listen to you. I think it was nordstrom who said "we hire the smile" which means that knowledge is trainable, but charisma, charm, being likable and a good person to work with is not (or at least very much harder to train).

Honestly unless you really want to go the retail way as in becoming a buyer, manager, etc. retail isn't going to open a whole lot of doors for you. At least I haven't found it to. I like my job, but it is not want I want to do for the rest of my life. When I was younger and first starting out in men's clothing I loved it but my passion killed it for me as well.

The reason I asked the Billy Mays question was to hint at this. You have the passion for clothing which is one of the things he did great. People believed him. My thought in asking this question to you is would you have this passions for all items you would HAVE to sell? It was something that was hard for me at first when I got into sales but learned to work around. I have since tried to sell only things I believe in but it is hard when you work for larger companies. I was lucky and was a buyer at the mens store so I got to chose a lot of what came in. But also what got Billy to be such a great salesmen, and like most salesmen he had a great pitch and customers ate it up. This is something that doesn't come natural to lots of people and this is probably what the companies you're applying to don't want to train you on. I would, if I were you, try to find a small mens store and see if they would take you on. Your passion and knowledge would got a lot farther there than at a place like Nieman Marcus.

Also not to be critical but is English your first language? I noticed a lot of mistakes in your posts and they may see communication as an issue as well.

Since 99.9% of the buyers know absolutely nothing about men's clothing, the retail establishment can afford to lose the 0.1% that are knowledgeable.

The post by "mcbrown" hit the nail on the head. The sales position has nothing to do with your sense of style...it has everything to do with your ability to sell.

With respect to business attire (as opposed to clubbing attire, for example), South Florida is no different from most places in the country.