UKC

Has anyone worked in an Ellis Brigham store before? Any good?

In reply to RobbieT:

My sister did. She hated it.

It's working in a shop at the end of the day. Surely won't be much different anywhere unless very specialist or one with emotional investment (eg. you own it).

Thought so. That fills me with joy.

In reply to RobbieT: A friend of mine worked at mountain warehouse for a week then quit!

Another friend that works at Cotswold seems to think that all the standing around with not a lot to do is the killer.

Have fun!

In reply to RobbieT:

My brother worked at the shop in Bristol for a year or two. Good and bad points. He has some funny stories including being asked for edible underwear and a cricket bat... this is a mountain sports shop.

He got on well with the buyers who are based above the Bristol shop so got some great deals on gear. Otherwise unlike other shops you only get 25% off shop price rather than trade.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to RobbieT: I worked for EB and Cotswolds. EB was much quieter and the discount was less than Cotswolds but you earned 0.5% commission at brighams which doesn't sound a lot but bumped your wage up in the winter. I liked working for Brighams but customer service is poor and you get nothing but grief from customers. Cotswolds is a much different outfit. less specialist and a more corporate company to work for.

I would recommend either to work for but it isn't for everyone and you don't know if it is or not unless you try.

In reply to RobbieT:

My son recently did his work experience for them, he enjoyed it. I have a few snowboarding friends who have worked for them and speak quite highly of them.

In reply to RobbieT: I forgot to mention, my bro did get to go on a few paid snow boarding trips and a winter climbing trip up in Scotland and climbing in Wales testing the new years kit so I think that kind of makes up for getting a smaller discount.

Cheers

Toby

In reply to higherclimbingwales:

OMG! So for every £100 you sold, you got 50p.

Gosh.

In reply to RobbieT:

Working in gear shops is very dull during the week - it's mainly filling shelves, tagging clothes and just generally moving stock around, cleaning and laughing at the reviews in Trail magazine.

Weekends, on the other hand, can be manic!

In reply to RobbieT:


If you do work for them be absolutely sure to keep your own written record of what hours you worked each day, check your pay slip religiously, do not trust their sign in & out system one iota (if they're still using the system where you sign in with your number on the till when you arrive at work & out when you leave) and for goodness sake dont trust that your manager/a colleague has signed you in unless you actually watched them do it.

I had a nightmare time working for them for various reasons that I wont go into detail about here because the things that were wrong could have gone wrong in any other retail job, it was just luck & circumstances that they happened to happen to me at EB's rather than elsewhere, so it would be unfair to have a massive rant at them (basically stemmed from a lousy manager in a particular store at a particular time, all large chains are gonna have um)

In reply to EeeByGum:

Seems pretty good to me, probably makes quite a difference to the staff.

In reply to RobbieT:

I've worked at EB p/t when I was inbetween jobs and thought it would be a good laugh. It was.

In my interview they asked me why I wanted to work there and I told them something about how I loved climbing and the high mountains and the people etc, all from the heart. But in reality they only need to know if you like selling kit (and especially clothes) and being neat enough to stack shelves and hang up clothing.

I often felt quite sorry for customers when I witnessed the sh*tty advice offered to them by complete tools. This is hardly suprising considering that the "training" is nothing special and very very brief - they tell you the basics of clocking in/out, and which employees to learn from, and that's about it. Although there're staff training days and sessions when brand reps come in and talk about their products and how to sell them (which you have to usually come in earlier for)

I'm lucky in that I'm good at selling and have decent knowledge of climbing, skiing and hiking. I very often had the highest sales (£5000 on one Saturday!) and felt like other people took to competing in a semi-serious way. Becase there's a 0.5% commission sometimes new people "stole" sales off of you!!

Most of the customers were just punters - ie the non-climbing type who're after hiking boots or skiing goggles, or walking trousers etc.

The worst bit was the crap wage £6/hr. Basically it's wage slavery! It's worse when you consider the markup and higher than normal retail prices of goods at EB.

The upsides are that it's a very sociable job in that you always have the opportunity of speaking to customers and other staff, this is largely store dependant of course, whether it's a busy store or not. You get 30% off after working for about 3 months, and there are occasionally other staff offers and training trips. I've still got a few mates from working there.

It's not an ideal job, unless you don't care about the low wage or don't have too many other options of employment. It's most suitable for younger people, as the average age of people working there seemed like under 21.

In reply to EeeByGum:

yeah, but you would generally easily sell 2k each day over the weekend so thats an extra £20 over a weekend.