sales associate

stocker

packer

art framer

retail sales associate

BLICK Art Materials

I recently had the pleasure of working as a Sales Associate at Blick Art Materials, and I am delighted to share my experience. From the moment I joined the team, it became clear that Blick Art Materials is not just a store; it's a haven for artists and creatives alike. As a sales associate, I had the opportunity to engage with customers who were passionate about art, and it was truly fulfilling to assist them on their creative journeys.

Blick Art Materials is a well-known name in the art industry, and for good reason. The company's commitment to providing a wide range of high-quality art supplies and materials is unparalleled. As a sales associate, I had the privilege of being surrounded by an extensive selection of art products, which allowed me to develop my own artistic knowledge and skills. This, in turn, enabled me to better guide and advise customers, ensuring they found the perfect tools for their projects.

The supportive and collaborative environment at Blick Art Materials is one of its greatest strengths. The management team and fellow employees fostered a culture of teamwork and creativity, making it an enjoyable workplace. Whenever I faced challenges or had questions, I could count on my colleagues for guidance and support. Additionally, the management team consistently recognized and appreciated the efforts of the sales associates, which motivated us to excel in our roles.

Customer satisfaction was at the forefront of every interaction. Blick Art Materials takes pride in providing exceptional customer service, and this value resonated with me. From helping customers navigate through the store to offering personalized recommendations, I found great joy in ensuring that every customer's needs were met. The genuine smiles and expressions of gratitude from customers were the most rewarding part of the job.

Furthermore, the professional development opportunities at Blick Art Materials were remarkable. The company encourages its employees to expand their artistic knowledge and skills by organizing workshops, seminars, and art events. This investment in our growth not only enhanced our abilities as sales associates but also fostered a deeper understanding and appreciation for art in general.

Overall, my experience as a Sales Associate at Blick Art Materials was nothing short of exceptional. The combination of a vibrant artistic atmosphere, supportive colleagues, and a commitment to customer satisfaction made it a truly rewarding position. If you have a passion for art and enjoy interacting with fellow art enthusiasts, I highly recommend considering a sales associate role at Blick Art Materials. It's an opportunity to embark on a creative journey and contribute to the artistic community in a meaningful way.

While starting pay may be good, the hours and expectations are disappointing. Part time employees are expected to keep open availability up to 3 weeks ahead of time (which if you are splitting time between jobs-creates a difficult challenge). District Managers (at least the one over the Mid-west/southern stores) occasionally made racist, sexist, or inappropriate comments, while using his position to intimidate Managers and employees but due to his relationship with his bosses, would not face any repercussions. Relationships between those in HR and Higher ups in the company make it hard to trust in reports, and numerous store closures make it stressful to know what would/could happen with your store. The number of managers constantly "leaving to the company" which is code for "fired because they no longer kissed enough behinds, or were a threat to District Managers due to their experience" made it day to day email updates worrisome.

Corporate Office was terrible at communication, but quick to make things difficult when asking for clarification or aid.

Most Importantly, since merging with biggest competitor (Utrecht) Corporate become too confident regarding their place in the Art Retail world. Without another national competitor, they began to resent their customers to the point of having the approach of "where else are they going to go?" While one can assume this logic may work in smaller cities to some degree (which it doesn't because of Amazon, and other companies selling online), for larger cities with other options (Atlanta has 2 other companies), Blick is still willing to over charge, do away with any level of discount, and blatantly disregard any level of quality of Customer Service. While we can understand that the bottom line ultimately can be $$$, you should at least make the attempt or pretend for the customer to make the attempt, and Blick is no longer willing or able to do either, if it won't make them significant money. 

Its a company run by those who either forgot or never knew what it takes to really run a store and make customers happy to give you their time, energy or money. 

Race also seems to play a strong factor in promotion, raises, and reports. Not a very equal opportunity company once you get past the store level-when the list of minorities can be counted on one hand at yearly corporate/manager meetings, then something isn't right.

I worked there several months and saw a lot of issues with management. Some of the managers seemed cool but the GM and one of the assistant managers consistently had a negative attitude especially towards employees. When I was hired I was not told until the 2nd week of the job that the store would be moving locations, the new location was not far but that should have been something talked about. Throughout the change, the GM assured us that we would all still have jobs after the move, but the staff seemed to dwindle more and more every month after the move. The GM has been known to go on anger rampages when there are issues with the store and tends to take it out on the staff. She's bragged to empolyees and customers that she is the first GM to do a move this big and not have a mental breakdown. She yells at employees for drawing at any point during the shift and has said several times "I'm not paying you to be an artist, I'm paying you to sell art supplies. Once before the holidays, I told her I would need time off to visit my family. She joked that "maybe I didn't need to see my family, and could work instead." She implied once during a employee meeting, that the staff was stealing products. "If you're all artists and not buy product then do the math, you must be stealing. The other manager tends to be negative when dealing with employees and is judgemental of the art and styles of the other employees. He openly talks about employees, even if they are on shift with him and currently working the floor!!!! He makes a lot of backhanded comments like "Wow, finally stocking up like a REAL artist.". This location as a whole is only really business minded and terrible at organization. The back stock and layout of the store changes nearly weekly. One a manage will tell you to work the floor and talk to customers and then another will yell at you for slacking. The customers can be a little snobby as well. In general, there is very low employee morale, probably because the GM had told us several times not to have conversations with each other unless it is work related. She tells us to talk more off the clock. A few of the empolyees are competitive and will be rude to you if you try to help. Not all Blick stores are like this, but the Fenway location is a mess.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I love working with all the beautiful and inspiring art supplies! I feel so much joy just being around these wonderful products!

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The human factor is what makes this job difficult. A lot of times customers will tend to get angry if I don't know everything about everything, and it can get very frustrating when I don't have all the answers. I think a lot of the customers expect a search engine in human form. Additionally, communication is not ideal at the store I work at. I've also had times where I've had to ask a coworker a question about a certain product, and it seems like there's that same level of frustration as can happen with customers, if I don't know everything about every product. I've gotten looked at like I'm crazy/mentally ill for simply asking questions.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Product knowledge seems to be the most important thing here, aside from helping customers. At first it seemed like a good work culture, but the longer I stay with this job the more I'm seeing that it is quite toxic here just like most other retail/customer service based jobs. I do feel that because I'm not as loud as some of the coworkers at my store that I tend to be perceived as a joke. I'm not a naturally loud/attention-seeking personality, and I feel that's something that works against me at this job.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Mix between very fast-paced trying to keep up with all the customers -and stocking additionally if it's a shipment day- but other times can be slow enough that employees will straighten product and downstock. The location I work at is on a fairly popular bus route, so it seems that the timing with large influx of customers usually coincides with the bus route schedule. It can go from no customers to a whole store full of customers within the space of 45-90 seconds, and back again to no customers in the same span of time.

I spent 4 years at Blick for a reason, and that reason is that I genuinely enjoyed working there for that time. Everyone I got to work with is someone who I would consider myself to have gotten to work with, from my associate peers to all members of management. The workplace culture is more often than not one that is both customer oriented but focused on supporting each other as employees and peers. The days were spent making sure our tasks were done, which were delegated by management everyday clearly, and working with every customer we could to ensure that they were happy. The hardest part of the job was dealing with difficult customers, as art supply stores are often inundated with theft problems based on the fact that they're stores that stock small items that can be worth a lot of money and on occasion dealing with sketchy people due to the central location of the store. The store is easy to get to by bus, which means that it was very convenient to get to as someone who worked there. The other negative that I would state is that there are very rarely opportunities for part-time associates to move into full-time associates, and they only maintain a small amount of full-timers.

GOOD: Easy to call out and get covered shifts, flexible with scheduling.  30%-40% off employee discount. (However, some items are exempt from a discount, and I have found buying online is still cheaper than the employee discount!) Being around art supplies and building knowledge about supplies and who buys them. PAID TIME OFF - more you work the more paid time off hours you acquire. 

BAD: VERY corporate company but tries to play it off  as family-owned and caring to fit in with the artist community. Pays minimum wage and is extremely frugal about raises, never saw anyone get one except for 5-8 cent raises during yearly reviews. I got a 50 cent raise once, but it took my General Manager begging the Regional Manager and convincing him I was worth it. The higher ups do not make art, know anything about the art world, or have any involvement in the art community they are in. There are little to no chances to move up, and even management positions pay only a couple dollars over minimum wage for A LOT of responsibility. 

Working here is amazing if you have other things going on and want a clock-in clock-out job. There are little to no opportunities to move up or do anything bigger than the job description, whether you are a manager or a sales associate. Super retail and super corporate at the core, but at surface level you can find some fun art parts that may fulfill you.

Working as a contact center rep was great at first but it was definitely not my scene. Going into the job I was enthusiastic and grateful for the job (it was one of the highest paying jobs in my town, besides the medical field of course). Although as I continued to work I got tired of it. It was like those cartoons where a person is working a 9-5 office job and it wasn't my scene. I did have the option to work from home )they made that available due to covid) but I worked in the office. I would definitely recommend this job to anyone young and willing to work, they paid well, and I could full time or part-time given if I was attending school or not. There were many who had worked there since their 20s and were now in their 50's. I got into a depression with the daily repeated lifestyle of the job and mentally I could not do it anymore. My manager was aware of this but given I hadn't been there for more than a year I did not have job security for all the sick days I was taking, so I left. Shortly before I left the starting pay rate was raised.

I enjoyed my job as the Design Center Framing Lead but it seemed the company wanted a lot of work to be done with only $0.27 raises each year I was there. Also, I was actually hired under the title Design Center Manager but two weeks after I was there, the entire company changed it's policies and deemed that anyone with the title of 'Manager' was supposed to be a 'salaried' employee. So thereafter, because I was not on salary, they gave me the title of Design Center Lead, which mainly sounds more like a basic sales position. Compared to how rent costs are rising, the pay was less than desireable and I was asked to perform marketing tasks as well as handle customers, train staff and complete framing projects for under $15/hour. No wonder big companies like this have such high turnover rates. At the Tampa location, they hired 2 different managers that had next to no experience in any sort of art field, only management. I suppose this is typical for large competitive supply chains now. Meanwhile, the associates working there who have degrees in art and graphic design get paid $10/hour and have to work several jobs to keep up with bills.

A typical day includes opening the store, cash handling, setting up registers, writing a daily work schedule, walking the sales floor and assigning tasks and associate placement. Morning communication huddle. Checking corporate emails and assigning corporate tasks. Checking PO's, ensuring product is arriving on time. Analyzing sales and planing accordingly. Communication with sales and inventory managers to make sure both areas are running smoothly and according to plan. Walking the sales floor to ensure merchandising is at a high visual standard. Meeting with framing manager and creating a sales plan and strategy. Walking perimeter of building,  cleaning and covering up any graffiti. Checking house account report and communicating with top customers. Checking time punches, fixing any errors and discipline of associates if need be. Walk the store mid day and address and visual or safety issues. Customer service during peak afternoon time, Check corporate emails one more time. clean and zone store. Close registers and have huddle with closers. Lock up

Blick is a wonderful company overall to work for. Excellent benefits, good compensation, sweet incentive/bonuses, paid time off. They do a lot with giving back to the community and are nicely focused on customer service and support. As with all retail jobs, if you have great coworkers you'll have a great daily work environment.
The issue is the stores themselves are fairly contained - general managers can do pretty much anything they want, there is little oversight between their position and their boss. The district manager tended to pop in very briefly, speak only with the general manager, and then leave. Not so great if you have a general manager who has no idea what they're doing.
They also have a big issue with dishonesty. The pricing structure specifically - they change the way they discount and price items constantly, and oftentimes with very little insight into why. So many items are "coupon excluded" with no warning, so customer complaints were aplenty.
Job advancement is non-existent, particularly in the smaller retail locations.

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