Sales Associate at Kay Jewelers-Great place to shop, horrible place to work
Pros
Great Pay, awesome health benefits including vision, health, and dental. Also received a flex spending account. Sick time off and paid vacation after a year of service. Will pay for tuition if your major is retail or business related and you are up to standard. Great merchandise and competitive prices. Sterling Selling meetings where you receive tips and advice directly from the regional and district managers. Opportunities to become a certified diamontologist and gemologist. 40% discount on all the jewelry. personal jewelry repairs are at the cost price too!
Cons
First of all I worked in the Rotterdam Kay Jewelers. Traffic here even on a Saturday is slow. The mall is so dead customers would walk up to us and ask us if the mall was closing. Unrealistic sales quotas to meet with in an economic downturn. If you don't make all of the 5 standards they'll terminate you after 6 months. I was given an ultimatum, If I didn't make X amount of dollars in retail sales and repairs in two weeks, they threatened to fire me. What made matters worse is they gave me my 3rd notice 2 and a half weeks b4 the Christmas season. Heartless. Like I don't have my own financial responsibilities. At least let me finish the holiday season. My hours were also cut for a 4 month period from 40 to 25. Makes it pretty hard to sell when you are rarely ever there. Working here is frustrating. I quit to find a steadier paycheck and distress since you are constantly living on the edge. I couldn't take the stress. Jewelry sales is supposed to be fun. Being Therefore there is a high turn over rate for the sales team and management. You are promised two weeks of extensive training and are then thrown on the sales floor. No time to work on work books or exercises. The 1st 3 days I worked at Kay's I tried to read the workbook and was told to put it away and get credit apps. Yeah, real extensive training alright! I learned that your training experience is rushed through and may constantly vary, based on which member of the management team is hired and fired that week. Weekends are mandatory like with most retail jobs. There is such a high turnover rate with employees here that it makes it hard to sell as a team and learn as a team. You are also not allowed behind the bridal counter until after 6 months where at that time you must be DCA certified. Emphasis is placed solely on having sell credit card apps, not jewelry. Once I made a 2,000 sale on a custom engagement ring, a diamond neck, leo diamond earrings, and diamond hoop earrings. Instead of a awesome congratulations from my DM I got a series of questions directed to me as to why I didn't have any credit applications. Thanks for no encouragement and guidance. You are constantly feel like you walking on egg shells. I walked away from Kay Jewelers with my sanity, but still no clear knowledge or grasp of all of the product lines and diamondtology training. Very disappointing.
