I am writing this for anyone who currently works for Dillard's. I worked there for about 7 months and thought it was a pretty nice job. I am the type of person who likes to learn it all (midd's, sends, markdowns, product knowledge, product-lookup, cics, credit apps, etc). I would go to work to do a good job, and had great enthusiasm to do all tasks given to me plus the many tasks I could find for myself. It was my preferred way to pass the time (considering how slow it's been given the current economic slow-down).
I was pretty much in denial that my pay was going to be 100% determined by my sales. My sales were never bad. But because I worked hard to keep my area nice, it was very typical that whoever I worked with would get a better sales total for the day. Usually not by much, but I was somewhat resentful that I was doing 90% of the work and getting fewer sales.
My ASM seemed to like me, so she would give me "special hours" anytime I asked for them. She would work with me on anything I asked. When I saw my 6 month review was coming, she encouraged me to go for the 15% raise. It seemed unattainable, but she said, "it can be done." It can. I think she was implying a scheme beyond just trying to sell another shirt here and there. Whoever wants to get a raise, and your sales are not that great, there's a clever way to do it.
You need to know EXACTLY where you are in sales... Your ASM can bring this number up for you. If you divide your sales by your chargeable hours, that gives you your SPH. Now, take your standard rate and multiply it by 1.15. That's what you need to sell per hour to get a 15% raise.
Figure out how many hours you expect to work between now and your review date. Add that to the number of hours you've worked in your current review period. Multiply that TOTAL number to the number you got from the paragraph above (standard x 1.15). This is how much you MUST sell during your review period to get your raise.
This is all information you should already know. So now you know your numbers. You need to be in good with your co-workers. ASK people who don't care about their sales if you can get their sales (perhaps $200 a day) and you will pay them back after your review. Most of these people will oblige, and most of them will be gone in the next month or so anyway (Dillard's has such a high turnover), so you won't have to pay them back. I had a standard of like 121 in clothing, and when I started my little campaign, I sold about $200/hr! This was over-compensating so I was TURNING DOWN people's help! But I had an awesome rappor with people on the floor. If you are a lazy shark, nobody's going to help you. I was a hard worker and liked my co-workers, so help came from even the most hard-core Dillard's salespeople. They got me the raise. When it came time to pay back the roughly $10,000 in sales I got from people, half the sales were from people who now were fired or quit. The other half mostly were not accepted. They were happy to do me a favor!
Also you can do returns on the "8's" for sales you did, but that's not too nice since the "unknown original salesperson's" returns will be divided across everyone in the department. I couldn't bring myself to do that.
In the end I got the raise! But Dillard's takes a month to give it to you. Unlike any other company I worked for, they won't pro-rate it. This company is very cheap, and makes hard-working, intelligent employees play tricks on their system just to get the money they deserve.
I never saw my raise. I had an issue with the assistant store managers. They were extremely uncaring, snobbish, demeaning, condescending, and unprofessional. I retaliated. I'm glad I did. I feel bad I worked there that long, I feel bad I acted against my better judgement, and I feel bad that I ever thought my co-workers were wrong for saying how terrible the operations managers are.
My advice: Work for a company that you are guaranteed some raise. I worked retail previous to Dillards and got atta-boy raises every few months, plus the mandatory union-determined raises. I made $15.50 an hour in a simple retail job like Dillard's (8 years ago to boot), and I got to that level by management recognizing my desire to do well. Dillard's will NEVER do that for you. Your ASM will have to go against her directives just to help you get a raise. And thats if you are lucky.
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