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Saks Cutting 1,100 Jobs

SoCal2NYC

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Saks is cutting 1,100 jobs and yesterday NM announced about 350 being cut.
 

SoCal2NYC

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lance konami

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Bought a jacket there last month and I was asking the sales guy how business was, he said they were down by 80%.
 

Go Surface

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Is that why Ty went missing? I was told he "quit."

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Steven Aver

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Originally Posted by SoCal2NYC
Saks is cutting 1,100 jobs and yesterday NM announced about 350 being cut.

NM's 350 are almost all Retail employees
 

lee_44106

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Dang, there goes my plan to be part-timer so I can advantage of employee discounts.
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SoCal2NYC

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Originally Posted by Steven Aver
NM's 350 are almost all Retail employees

Yes mostly in cosmetics too.
 

lee_44106

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I never understood why there's always so many employees in the cosmetic section and fewer in the clothing. Seems like all the cosmetic people do is try to spray some damn fragrance on me.

I always have to give them dirty looks.
 

EasyGoing

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They didn't break out retail/corporate job cuts in the article but I'm surprised (maybe naively) that they can shrink 9% without closing stores.
 

teddieriley

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Originally Posted by lee_44106
I never understood why there's always so many employees in the cosmetic section and fewer in the clothing. Seems like all the cosmetic people do is try to spray some damn fragrance on me.

I always have to give them dirty looks.



Maybe they have a higher profit margin, and it takes a team of people to push that crap on people. I view fragrance as something that doesn't occur to someone as something to go buy with any regular frequency, thus the added need to push it on you.
 

yawn123_#21

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It just looks like a lot of people because the cosmetics section is so cramped. I mean there technically is alot of people, but it's because it's divided up into many smaller depts, usually by brand. ie estee lauder will have a couple employees, then bobbi brown or w/e. usually each of the smaller depts have 1-3 emps, which makes sense because they have appointments and stuff and to sell their product usually means applying it on their customer, and teaching them how and what to use. In other departments, their sales people generally are just there to ring you up, or grab an item from the stockroom.

Honestly tho these companies go the dumb route out. They always cut the employees on the bottom of the food chain. Which means cashiers, temps, stock workers, and sales. These workers usually get min wage, or slightly higher than min wage. The sales people work off commission. Cutting a sales job saves them very little money, since they get paid on what they sell, even if business is slow it's not like your paying them a salary to be there. If they sell nothing, they don't get paid. Well usually it works on a system where if you sell more than slightly more than min wage you get paid on pure commission. if you sell less you get paid that amount slightly more than min wage. All that happens is the service gets worse, then people who do spend money during these hard times go there, get crap service then refuse to go back.


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i used to work retail at these stores. but school pays more and work with my school schedule
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Start by cutting salaried jobs that do little for the company. For example, how many times have you been to a store and seen merchandise that is way overpriced. I mean something 99% of the population will never buy just because it's so outrageously ugly, and priced at a high price. Even when on clearance at 80% off people don't want it. If the buyers are going to be dumb lay them off, and hire people with common sense. Cut some of the managers out. Like a department of 9 people, has 3 assistant managers and a dept manager. thats overkill, since their job responsibility entails scheduling the employees, and pretending to work. Sitting in the back calling each other and planning what to do for the weekend, or deciding which ipod to buy does very little for the company yet they are salaried.
 

LA Guy

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I had one of the worst SAs attend to me in the SF Saks (first floor of the men's store - a female, in her 50s, looked to be of middle eastern descent), in December. Even when it was obvious that I was ready to make a purchase, she made me wait while she ran an errand and then rung up the purchase as if I were imposing on her day. If I knew that big layoffs were coming, I would be kissing the ass of every customer there was 1 ) in hope of ringing up big sales, so that it reflects on my report, and 2) in hope that customer feedback might make it back to my manager/HQ.

I considered filing a complaint, but decided that it might be bad karma.
 

btinl

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How much do sales people at Saks and NM make on average? I've always wondered why they have so much attitude.
 

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