Working at Hermes
- Thread starter dutchglory
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I used to work in retail (a mix of high street and high end) and I can honestly tell you that it is a rarity to have staff that are there to fill the time or because they are a huge fan of the brand. For a lot of SA working in places like Hermes or Chanel is just better pay than a high street retailer,it is not for everyone as you could be working in a "shark tank" if you are on individual commission.It is a job that it is tiring as you are standing for 8 hours and it's not family friendly due to the long hours. There are plenty of careers in retail that don't involve working on the shop-floor and ultimately a lot of SA work their way up to a job in operations,stock control,HR etc... which still gives you the perks but with office hours. I didn't read the full thread but a few members are looking at this with the presumption that the SA's are as passionate as you are about Hermes where in reality for a lot of them is just merchandise. Another misconception is that there is a willingness to spend a few months wages for a handbag.Some will not be interested at all and some can't afford it or they have different priorities. Just an example of how expensive life is in London to give you an idea; Let's say that you earn £40.000 per year (good for a SA) after tax and national insurance you clear approx £2.500. The average rent is between £1.500 to over £2.000 (mortgage could be a tad less) and this doesn't include bills,food,commuting,savings etc. so it doesn't really stretch that far.
I always thought it would be cool to work part time once i cut back the hrs of my current job. But realistically, it would be difficult as i have no training in retail and would feel flustered with entitled customers. Plus, i would feel so envious when i get to see certain quota bags in front of me, but I don’t get to buy it!
I know this is a really old post. I should be in bed getting my beauty sleep instead of reading this far back. I applied for a job at LV MANY years ago. I spoke Japanese, Russian and English and had multiple years of retail experience. I say spoke not speak because I lost most of my Japanese if not all since. They were all over me for obvious reasons. However when it came to discussing the salary, what they offered was absolutely ridiculous- like $14 an hour or something like that. According to inflation calculator, that's $26 in todays money. I would not call that a good salary.Agree. @Crapples, i thought based on what I recall of DHs conversations with various premier SAs, total take home was more like 175K . I thought I read somewhere quarterly sales goals were like 5 million USD, but I could be totally wrong. I believe I read more in the LV subforum, where someone worked it out to x thousand in sales required per shift to meet sales goals. . .
This thread below states in 2008, LV SAs made 70k, no commission, (post #269) and in the later post (from someone in corporate — not LV— below that SAs often rejected non floor jobs bc they could make more selling. LV was not known to treat or pay its SAs well. I know when i started shopping with my first chanel SA in 2001, those were still considered the glory days when commissions were not as capped as they are today. most of these observations are based on US pay
How To work for Louis Vuitton...
My best friend was an Assistant Manager at LV for 5 years (she just left the company about 1 1/2 years ago to take another management position with a different company) and she said the pay was awful compared to other companies. I know Valley O mentioned Nordstrom and I have heard that they do...forum.purseblog.com
I was a huge customer of Hermes some years back and became very friendly with many of the sales people and managers. They all ended up leaving and told me after the fact that Hermes pay was terrible and had the lowest salary of any of the high end boutiques. One of them said that the commission on a Kelly bag was higher than the other bags so that was the preferred bag for them to sell, although at the time the boutiques were not getting many Kelly’s. I wasn’t clear if the commission was different on just that one bag or if it was different on all of them. Either way, they all ended up leaving because they needed to make a better wage. Please note that I am only the messenger here.
Wages don't always go up at the same rate as inflation. State of California, among few others, are legally required to post the range in a job posting. Looks like Palo Alto, CA is $23.80 - $32.20/hr. (the fact that it's somewhat aligned to what you posted about inflation calculator, I'd actually say it's a decent pay compared to few other jobs where wages have not drastically gone up). This is by no means saying it's a fair or competitive wage, just a comparison of how wages have gone up in some other sectors versus Hermes SA.
Disclaimer - I have no knowledge of how other luxury houses pay their SAs (though it might be a quick search from their websites). Also adding to say I just wanted to add my point about my first sentence in bold - part of my job requires explaining this to people.