- COMMISSION: Nordstrom likes to up sell everything, including its employee salary. You're made to think that you are eligible for commission with potential to make a great amount of money when in reality, you make EITHER your hourly OR commission, whichever is greater. What exactly does this mean? Depending on how many hours you work during a two week period (aka pay period), you have to meet a sales goal that when multiplied by your commission rate equals more than your hourly. I'm sure hourly rates vary by location. My location had a starting salary of $11.50 and commission rate of 5.75% which went up to $11.75 and 6.75% after about 6-8 weeks. If I worked 60 hours in a pay period, this meant I had to make more than $12,000 in sales in that two week period to make more than my salary. 11.50 x 60 = $690 , 12,000 x .0575% = $690. Commission rates vary by department!
- Your salary will vary greatly according to location. If you work at a busy location, making sales will come easily and you will have a good chance of making your sales goals and earning more than your hourly. However, if you work at a slow location, you will suffer low business traffic, low sales, and RETURNS. If you work at a busy location, making up returns is easy.
- RETURNS. Nordstrom doesn't have a return policy which really leaves returns at the discretion of the sales person or manager. During my time at Nordies, I experienced inconsistent guidelines as to how to facilitate returns. Most managers don't care and will issue a return even if it is a sketchy or fraudulent activity. Returns DO affect your paycheck. Everyday, you'll log in to your employee back office and see how many returns you have for the day which you need to make up in sales. This means you can come into work one day and be in the negatives until you make it up. This is what really hurts your ability to make a sales goal for the pay period. It doesn't matter if you made $20,000 in sales for the pay period when you have $10,000 in returns. Returns go back up to a year, meaning a $1,000 sale you did in February can come back and hurt you in January of the next year if it's returned. Yes, you'd be surprised to know just HOW much is returned at Nordstrom. I'm surprised they're even able to make a profit, honestly. In my own personal experience, I would have AT LEAST $200 in returns everyday. You'll get returns even on your days off meaning that when you're not working, you'll be negative $200 in sales for the day. It really depends on your luck, I suppose and location.
- Making sales goals can be difficult especially if your coworkers are dishonest. There is no policy regarding the stealing of sales, but it happens ALL THE TIME. You can be working with a customer who is about to make a $500 purchase all so that a coworker can ring them up while you're busy with another customer. It sucks, but it happens. Your managers will steal sales from you too, by the way.
- If you don't make your sales goal for the pay period, you will get written up. You get three write-ups before you can get fired. I know this practice varies by department and probably also by location, but it really hurts the salesperson. Though I was able to make my sales goals most of the time, my co-worker had two write-ups regarding not meeting her sales goal. This was tough on her because we worked in the BP. section (where items average $40 a piece) and at a location that experienced little to no traffic. You can't expect salespeople to make $1000 in individual sales for the day when the department itself can't even make $500 that day, not counting returns. This essentially puts a salesperson in a position where they are either forced to steal sales, or up sell items the customer doesn't want.
- CUSTOMERS. If you aren't about customer service, DO NOT WORK HERE. In my experience, Nordstrom has some of the worst customers. They are very entitled and nit-picky, which is something you have to deal with as a salesperson. You must always be presentable, flexible, and courteous. You must greet every customer that walks into your department and offer help/insight about your products. This in itself is very easy until you get a few customers who want all your undivided attention for however long they are there only to leave empty handed. There will be customers who will want your opinion on items that are not for them (which makes it hard to recommend a product for an imaginary person), not want to spend a lot for this person, and will take up a good amount of your time while you can be making sales with another customer. This is a horrible mentality to have, but the Nordstrom culture really forces you to prioritize what customers you want to service. You will also have customers asking about the materials of the clothing, if they will shrink or not, if they can be machine washed, etc. even though they can read it on the label themselves. If you don't possess this kind of patience, stay away. You will also have customers who will expect a certain treatment because they spent $500 etc. Overall, you must deliver excellent customer service to everyone even if they aren't worth your time, which gets to you after working there a while. It all comes down to whether or not your effort is worth their sale $$.