retail sales associate

warehouse associate

seasonal warehouse associate

retail assistant manager

merchandise processor

Backcountry

This used to be a great place to work. Great company, great management, great co-workers, great building and environment (ping pong, xbox, Foosball, snack and drink machines), good benifits, great deals on gear and probably some stuff I'm missing. I have friends and family that recently quite their jobs there, though because of a change in upper management. Apparently working there is bad enough to drive away many of their employees. I've been made aware of around 20 people that I know personally or at least met outside of work a few times that have quite because of the change. I'm sure the pay is still about the same, although it's not competitive anymore from what I've heard and the building probably still has all the amenities as when I worked there. Just a foreword. A typical day at work for me was showing up at 8:00, taking customer's requests for information on different pieces of gear that we sold and suggesting what I thought would work best for them. It was a non-commissioned based sales job for the most part, which I liked because we weren't pressured to sale at the time. The customers were all very nice because we weren't trying to upsale things we sold or pressure them into buying anything. We also had an amazing return policy so I think I only had one upset customer during my time there and he quickly calmed down when I told him I would give him what he wanted. Later on, I was allowed to work from home. I was one of the "gearheads" who worked on chat rather than phone, which I liked as well. This was where I got my first QA experience so I learned a lot about finding bugs, rating bugs, tracking them and a lot more basic QA knowledge. I also learned how to mega-multi-task on a computer. We would have three chats going at once. It made for a busy but fast work day. When I was there, the management was great. Good feedback, good attitudes, good personalities etc. Most of my co-workers were great people too. With a company that big, you should expect to not mesh with a couple people here and there but overall, this company only employed people that fit the culture. I've heard that changed. The hardest part of the job was learning how to give equal time to each customer I was online with even though one customer had an easy question and another had a very hard question. The most enjoyable part of the job was probably the people I worked with, and just the job in general. I really enjoyed helping people find the gear they would enjoy the most and letting them know that if they didn't like it as much as they thought they would, they could send it back and try something else out. It was a fun job.

I was an employee at backcountry.com for 7 months. I left this job with a heavy heart, because I was moving to California for an uncertain time. I worked the morning shift (6am - 2.30pm) and lately the voluntary overtime starting at 5am each morning. I loved waking up early and was excited every single day to get to my tasks, see my coworkers and bosses of all sort. 


PROS:
- It is so easy to get to know your direct management team as much as the ones higher up. Even the HR, CEO, etc knew my name before I knew theirs. That showed interest for the employees to me.I became friends with people of every department and any sort of position. Snowboarding/ Mountain biking/ Snow biking/ Bowling with my department (Non-Con) was almost a daily thing. My direct Supervisor, Coworkers, friends and I were bonding over sports and more effective at work therefor.

- My hours were amazing!!!! 5am - 2.30pm! Full-time job and still a full day to play and live!!! I want those hours in my current job as well :/  

- The metrics are of high standard, but generally easy to hit and reasonable. Just work hard and you still have time to interact with your coworkers or managers/supervisors. If I had a concern it was easy to go up to the responsible person and to be honest about my thoughts and needs. I always got a solution and support from every side needed. More than I ever expected!

If you work hard and are contributing to the growth of the compnay with your attitude, extra work, whatever it takes, you WILL get recognized. (Free lift passes/ free gear/ paid meals/...) 

- I compared our discount to direct prodeals and...holy moly...our employee discount is soooo much better!!!!

- (My computer deleted half of my reviw, but I could go on with my positives!!! .....)


CONS:
- I was a forklift driver, the pay could be a little better for that sort of responsibility (heard that's already in the roll). In general the pay is above Utah's minimum wage though!  

- Worker's man comp. didn't help me when I got hurt at work. (My direct management was very supportive though, understanding that my work efficiency will have a huge gap for a few days.), that insurance company needs adjustment :D   


BOTTOM LINE: If I ever come back to Utah,I will DEFINITELY work for backcountry.com again. If you are a hard worker, love your tasks and are passionate about your work environment, you will rise and always get what you need/want. Backcountry.com invests in people who WANT this job with all of their heart.   To me that is important. I felt valued, loved, appreciated and cared for!!! Backcountry.com became my family/life.

I would describe my experience at Backcountry as disturbing, where there is no communication and the truth simply doesn't matter. And if it did, nobody would know about it anyway because of the lack of communication. We are talking about a place where you can literally see the misery on the employee's faces. Let that sink in for a minute. This is a place where the employee's look like they hate coming to work and for very good reason. 

A typical day at work involves showing up before your scheduled time so that you can make your way through the security check and not be late. Depending on your shift and when you arrive, this could take several minutes. As others have mentioned, you better not be late!

When your break arrives, you will have to repeat said process too and from the building which will cut into your break time. This routine causes a lot of head aches for the employee's and puts those who choose to leave the floor in a perpetual state of hurry. 

Unfortunately, what I learned working at this company is that going above and beyond means nothing. Working hard, means nothing. You can do everything you are suppose to do and still end up on the outside looking in. I learned that the majority of upper management are not people I would ever want to associate with outside of work due to their actions and behavior in the work place. 

Like with many aspects of life, the culture of the company will depend on your personal view. My experience at backcountry was that the majority of employee's are good, down to earth people. But there are quite a few who do not enjoy working at the company and there seems to be a fear of losing your job that permeates the atmosphere. 

The hardest part of the job will be dealing with certain aspects of management, some of whom seem to hate their job as much as the other employee's based upon their behavior while on the clock. If you're job is that stressful find a new one before it kills you. The most enjoyable part of the job will be your interactions with other employee's. 

Overall, this is not a company I would recommend working at. If you've did your research before applying then you have likely found this review. Do not underestimate this or other negative reviews because you will find out the hard way that you should have put your application in somewhere else.

Okay, here's the good about working for Backcountry: they give amazing discounts to their employees AND you can get one month of (unpaid) adventure leave where you can take a month off from work to travel the great outdoors, like hike the Appalachian. People there were really chill and easy going to work with. Backcountry also raised their minimum wage from $12 to $14 due to the pandemic and you can earn some killer hours there if you want to do overtime. Their 401k was one of the best in the area and they have good health insurance. You can earn swag tickets which you can use to get "free/unwanted" gear and clothing that didn't sell or they couldn't sell due to damage. Another nice quirk: when it gets slow, management sometimes lets you out early at 1pm. They also brought in lunches when we had to work overtime, which was really kind as some people work hungry.

Here is the not so great part about working at Backcountry: the hours and repetitive nature of the job can really suck the life out of you. I worked from 5am, sometimes 6am to 3pm, which is expected with warehouse jobs, but those couple hours before 8am just really knock your energy out, especially when you're stuck doing repetitive work for 9 or 10 hours. It's an extremely labor intensive job, so invest in your feet and get some really nice shoes with your discount from work. Management isn't the best. They didn't follow their own rules and were not honest about how many points you have accrued (you get points for calling out and being absent). You get a warning before they fire you, but you have to be watchful of your numbers for your own sake. There was also weird cliques in management and a supervisor who amazingly hasn't gotten fired is almost always in a nasty mood. Emails are constantly sent out congratulating upper management but not so much the essential workers and cleaners who kept the warehouse running during COVID-19. Sure we got a raise, but management got worse and started taking it out on each other and other departments. There isn't any advancement here because everyone who is a manager has been there for at least 8 years. Not worth it to stay.

This is an entry level job with above average pay for entry level. It's a great workout but can be killer on the feet, I've had to replace my shoes twice and insoles about 4 times because they wear down fast.

This isn't fast food, so the management doesn't hound you. You're expected to be an adult and show up on time and get stuff done. The pay is fair per work done even though much of your hard work doesn't show up in metrics, but the managers know who's entitled and who actually works hard, so "bad" metrics are usually forgiven.

Job advancement is slow considering there are very few specialist positions, usually filled by full-time employees who have worked hard for years. The pay increase is non-substantial, and dependent on the metric system which doesn't accurately account for all work. However, the pay is good to start with, especially for an entry level short-term or even seasonal job.

The workload tends to be heavy around Thanksgiving and Christmas, but slow through the summer. 2nd shift rarely ever stays the whole shift due to all work being completed.

Management try to accommodate and listen, but people tend to slip through so make sure you're on top of your own schedule and make sure you communicate with management early.

Considering this is a warehouse job, assume you'll get a workout each night, at least intense cardio.

HR works hard to listen and adapt employee suggestions. Typically gives out free lunches during every few weeks.

Conclusion: You sign up to be a grunt, so don't expect to feel entertained and happy all the time. Manual labor jobs aren't always fun, but remember it's what you sign up for. That being said, the atmosphere is really good and pay is great for the work level.

This place is completely worthwhile for the discounts and family you can make while on the team.  In the warehouse, it's a lot of monotonous work being a Merchandise Processor (that's the entry-level position and also what I started as).  As you excel in one task, they will start crosstraining you and place you in positions that you can work best in--some of it is pretty hard work.  The hours are pretty lame, but it is a warehouse where a customer's order is the priority.  There is plenty of opportunity for overtime.

There have been recent management changes that make the place seem questionable.  A lot of management responsibilities get forced onto lower-ranking leadership and it can get exhausting at times.  If you have enough drive to apply for problem-solving and specialist positions, get ready to be talked down to by managers.  Honestly, I wish I hadn't moved up and stayed put as a highly valuable Merch Processor--it's way less stress and you still have opportunities for raises.

It can get monotonous and repetitive in the warehouse, but you'll form some lifelong friendships in there.  One of the downsides in a leadership position is being a female--though we are fully capable of a lot of things, they often think you're lying for health problems and disregard hardships.  If you're a male, it's no problem whatsoever.  You'll see a lot of specialists come and go in the warehouse because of this.

You often get free gear and the occasional free lunch too!

Pros
gear at cost, somewhat flexible schedule, new 401k, occasional free lift tickets if you brown nose enough

Cons
Its really hard to know what to start because every department in this company is broken. I spent my time in gearhead operations,most recently as an account manager. Its a new program designed to retain key customers by building more personal relationships. Its turned out to be anything but that. The real focus of this program is to put as many customers as you can in your book of business so the admin can hid behind your online sales stats and not your personal sales stats which shows true relationships between gearheads and customers. Pay is always an issue. They have a long history of cheating commissions and putting restrictions in place that limit your commission potential. There have been times when they actually forget to pay you. They have even paid you and later have gone back into your checking account and removed the money because of mistakes made by under qualified managers. They cant get or keep good people because of their extremely poor reputation in the industry as an employer. Last year HR completely forgot to submit my new health insurance information and I basically didn't have health insurance for a few months. The sad part is every department has these types of issues. If you are thinking of a career here I would strongly advise against it. They will chew you up and spit you out.

I loved this job. I was there for 2 1/2 years and always tried my best to be positive and accept every challenge put before me. I loved my managers and supervisors as well. What sucked is that Corporate couldn't care less about you. No matter what your reason was, you ALWAYS got an occurrence for either being late or missing a day. Car broke down? Occurrence! Family member sent to the hospital? You bet you get an occurrence for leaving early! Mandatory overtime until 5pm and you cant pick up your kids from school? Better hope they can walk home. My manager and supervisor always understood when life threw a curve ball at me, but they obviously had to listen to corporate and write me up anyway. During Q4, we all worked a mandatory 80 hours one week, and 60 for the next 3 weeks. Only getting about three days off during the month of December made everybody hate their lives and the warehouse became the most depressing place you could be at. After being told we needed to work harder after those crazy weeks of OT, I simply clocked out and finished my time at backcountry. I was able to get all sorts of sweet discounted and free gear, which I couldn't be more thankful for, but there is a strong bitterness towards the head guys of BC. I doubt any of them have worked the physical labor they take for granted in every one of their employees. Trying to pick 85 units an hour and walk 20 miles a day gets more tiring than they understand.

I worked at Backcountry for about two years, first in the call center as an Inbound Gearhead and then in the retail store. These were two drastically different experiences, so I will distinguish between the two. I absolutely cannot recommend working in the call center on customer support. As an inbound gearhead, I had little to no control over my schedule, was micromanaged at every second, dealt with upset and privileged customers, and felt out of place among co-workers who were generally white, cis, straight men. HR is notorious for siding with white men in reported harassment/discrimination investigations, while they love to pretend they are inclusive, 90% of their workforce is white (and mostly cis men). 

However, as a retail gearhead, I actually enjoyed coming to work and felt seen and respected by both my coworkers and my managers. It's still retail and it had its own challenges, but was a significantly more positive experience compared to the call center. I loved the laid-back atmosphere and felt genuinely supported by my direct supervisors. 

Most people work at Backcountry for the sweet employee discount, and I'll fully admit I reaped the benefits of this perk. Nevertheless, I'm not sure that it's worth it to work there unless you're strictly there to score some new gear for a ridiculously great price and get out. 

If you’re a prospective hire looking in, let me save you some trouble. Those of us who have stuck it out through the latest upheaval are all severely bitter. Management has made and broken multiple promises and there are no signs anything will change. They distract us with bread (stocked break room fridge) and circuses (vendor clinics with free gear). They’ll continue to hide their mistakes behind “startup culture” and everyone who churns through will continue to believe it. As long as they continue to crush sales, employee sentiment won’t matter.

Why stay, you might ask? Well despite the utter incompetence of upper sales management, the people who do stick it out are some of the greatest outdoor athletes I’ve ever been around. We have access to some incredible gear and more often than not, have time to use it.

If you’re alright being distracted by cool people and gear perks, then Backcountry might just have a place for you.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Retail sales associate 7 salaries reported	$18.89 per hour
Warehouse associate 1 salary reported	$16.00 per hour
Seasonal warehouse associate 2 salaries reported	$16.50 per hour
Retail assistant manager 16 salaries reported	$20.09 per hour
Merchandise processor 29 salaries reported	$16.03 per hour

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