shift manager

retail sales associate

associate manager

retail assistant manager

processor

Castle Megastore

To start, there's 4 insane metrics to meet on top of simple dollar sales, and those metrics fluctuate based on the previous year. But they are typically high. 
You're required to get 75$ minimum for your average sales per transaction, This number can be even higher, typically it's around 79-80
3.8 items per transaction,
17% of your transactions rang up have to be a new email.
You have to sell tiny trial sized candies and register items as a stat. 
The numbers literally set you up to fail. One or two associates will succeed each day, but never the entire team unless there's literally everyone coming in buying toys and saying "yes yes spend my money for me." 

To add, the sign on bonus doesn't exist. The initial compensation is the only real fair thing about this Job. However, like every other retail business, they expect the world and then give you time consuming tasks on top of the everyday numbers you're supposed to hit. 

You'll spend well over half your shift with customers, working with them on sensitive subjects, but then get scrutinized for not basically forcing them to buy the most expensive stuff, and you are required to work with multiple customers at once, but in a blink of an eye someone else can all of a sudden have your customers and their sale because you weren't closely focusing with them enough. 

Management is an absolute joke, the only true management task is doing cash drops and filling out paperwork, unless you're a salary manager in which you have 500 things to do on top of your 10 hour sales goal per day. In a nutshell it's literally impossible to make your numbers unless you're stealing sales from other associates.
 
The dress code is insane, you couldn't even wear your own masks because "It helps customers identify you better." Truly the castle shirts  you wear should give that away. You can't dye your hair or have any visible piercings. Castle gives you zero free expression.

Requesting days off is a joke, whether you have paid time available or not they basically never respond to requests and you can't plan a vacation out farther than a month. Even asking for a 3rd day off has to go through corporate so it's honestly better to just call out. 

Corporate will make up positions to justify a pay rate you should have been earning in the beginning, except now you have more responsibility, again on top of your sales numbers. 

There are about 500 specific policies you're required to know, and barely any training to reinforce them all. On the bright side because of that the punishment for screwing up isn't very severe, but it definitely hurts your confidence. 

The few bright things about this job is the free life insurance, and the health, dental, and vision insurance isn't awful, though it's definitely not good either. 
Another bright thing is that you can win toys! High quality toys get fought over in a month to month competition and the winner gets a random toy from that brand and they do not get to choose the toy. There are typically 5-6 different brands per month that give each winner a toy. 

Job advancement seems somewhat random. It's all done through corporate and most of the time only the store manager gets to communicate with them exclusively. Raises and financial advancement are completely left in the dark. Nobody talks about how often reviews are done and raises given.

This job is a huge stressor and I absolutely can tell why the turnover is so high, but it pays the bills.

I genuinely appreciated my role in this organization; however, the company's internal structure is contributing to its own decline. A significant number of stores are managed predominantly by supervisors. In some locations, there may be only one or two sales associates, while the remaining five employees hold supervisor titles. This arrangement lacks a managerial figure, placing multiple individuals of equal rank in a position where they are expected to hold each other accountable. This model might function under ideal circumstances, but human nature complicates matters. Once an employee in training ascends from their title, they often perceive themselves as equal to their trainers, which, while technically accurate, undermines the hierarchy.

Corporate management appears to anticipate compliance from all employees, yet this expectation clashes with the reality of the promises made during hiring regarding numerous advancement opportunities, which, in practice, are nonexistent. Consequently, newly hired individuals feel a need to assert their competence. Regardless of tenure, if a newcomer reports that a long-standing employee is underperforming—often without merit—corporate is likely to take their word over that of the dedicated employee, regardless of the latter's contributions or the sacrifices made, such as forgoing vacation or sick leave. During slow periods, hours may be reduced if sales targets are not met, contributing to a highly toxic work environment.

If you want to work in an adult store and this chain is your only option, go for it. You'll be working with other people who are interested in toys/the industry. That's about all the good I can say about it. What you individual experience is like depends 100% on your store manager. Corporate is ridiculous with the owner being totally out of touch with the toy industry and the equivalent of district management being exactly the worst you'd expect from middle management. There are a couple great people at the corporate offices. Learn their personal numbers and skip the chain. 

Sales goals are difficult, since they are contradictory. Sell lots of items per transaction and tons of <$5 register items, but don't let your average sale below a certain amount. That sort of thing. Even if you're making all the major sales goals your manager will be directed to nitpick you on other metrics. This feels less like constant direction/improvment and more like you're never good enough. 

Pay is not competitive. Bonuses are rare. Incentives for being a brand top seller are alright if you like getting enough free lube to fill a swimming pool and a bunch of toys you might not be able to use. 

You'll hardly ever get two days off in a row. If you request lots of weekend days off or consecutive days off for some reason, expect to be hated and/or denied. Paid time off accrues slowly and must be approved by corporate, who doesn't care about you and doesn't know you. Good luck taking more than 7 days off, not just because you won't have the chance at 7 days PTO for a long time, but because they shortstaff on purpose and corporate and your coworkers won't let you. Screw you if you wanted to throw a couple days unpaid off on the end of your PTO, too. 

Don't try to get a job here. It seems like a fun work environment at first glance, but corp management make it a living nightmare. I have lost track how many times my team were yelled at for not completing tasks, when the only reason the job didn't get done was because A) We were not informed of a newly added task, or B) Corp didn't send us the necessary tools or items to complete the task. You WILL be treated like trash for doing what the bosses told you to do, because what corp and the owners say and what they actually want are complete opposites more than half the time. They'll say stuff like "the manager/SFL should never have higher sales than the rest of the team, if its a slow day the leader should step back and help the regular employees." But then they exclusively promote people who step on other employees to get the highest sales numbers and demote or fire everyone who followed the rules, because sales numbers are the only thing they care about. My store was falling apart (broken shelving, unfinished walls, black mold in the bathrooms and breakroom, etc) and they refused to do anything about it. I was written up twice for things I didn't do, and I know several other people who got the same treatment when they got too vocal about the complete lack of support from corp office. The pay is good, the customers are fun, and the products are fun to sell, but it's not worth the abuse.

There is a metric that sales associates as well as managers are expected to make. This metric also reflects how many hours you will receive and you will constantly be threatened that if you're not making metric then your hours will be cut so NEVER expect actual full-time hours. However, they don't take into account the actual traffic of the store. They expect every sale to be turned into $100 sale with 6 items or more and that is just a realistic expectation. They also recently started selling extended warranties which is now part of the metric. However, that is through a third party company that seems to have a lot of shady business practices similar to Castle. They are constantly giving customers the run around which then falls back onto the employee and associates at stores who are receiving calls that they are not getting the refund from the extended warranty as promised resulting in being yelled at. They also sell their own awful products that are built to break also resulting in a lot of upset customers but they do it so they can get repeat business and make more money. If you are interested in working for Castle prepare to be disrespected daily by higherups as well as pushed to make metric without any comission based payment. Awful job. Awful company to work for.

Very interesting experience NOT for everyone. The culture between employees and management is more personal rather than professional. Very strong team based atmosphere however the strong focus from corporate on individual goals and quotas causes cross communication between corporate and store management on how an employee is to proceed on the sales floor. It is very confusing. The store operates on a commission based sales system WITHOUT paying commissions example: an employee MUST average 3.00 items per sale daily AND maintain that average per week or you are subject to disciplinary action leading up to termination. It was the first time ever that I worked under that system where it was STRICTLY enforced. I  fairly enjoyed my experience with the management and my co- workers overall, I just wish the store was in a better location and a more reasonable system was in place with the Director of sales being held more accountable on the success/failure of every individual store instead of pushing the blame on the employees.

Hired on as Sup and my trainer was also a Sup who was only in the role for a few months. They want sups to do manager tasks, but won’t hire managers or train you for those managerial tasks. You just get nasty emails or notes left about manager tasks you haven’t been doing (even thought you’re not a manager). No one actually knows policies. Everyone just kinda does their own thing or make up rules that aren’t written anywhere. My first couple of days, my direct deposit information sat out on the sales floor the entire time and I later found out that my tax and direct deposit info wasn’t submitted until 12 days after I received my first paycheck. Concerns about store safety, maintenance, and inventory are generally pushed to the side because they want you to only focus on selling. Like there’s a laundry list of safety issues at my store and they just tell me I should be selling better lol. Not worth the pay and free toys are cool, but commission would be better. Lastly, they want you to buy uniforms, tshirts, and clear purses for this job. I’ve spent almost $300 for this outrageous dress code.

This job is the equivalent to trying to successfully chew fire while walking on shards of stained glass. 

These owners and their wanna be “corporate” are ripping so many people off that I feel dead inside. We are literally reprimanded for talking with customers too long. That’s a brand new policy btw, that happens a lot. If you’re a veteran worker, you can choose which policies to adhere to. Director of sales calls under performers “grinches” in email blasts, and the owners just don’t care if it isn’t about money. 

Must sell warranties, tell the customers whatever it takes to sell the warranties. Reprimanded for not consistently meeting 3/5 metric demands, they will retaliate and cut your hours. If you have an emergency, hours cut. If your store is set on fire by probably a former employee, hours cut. 

Do not work here if you believe in yourself. This job and the awful corporate sales mentality is a life syphon. They will make you have to lie to sell just to get your numbers up so that you keep your job.  You’re basically just a statistic.

What to say about this place?? First,  fellow employees talk trash behind your back, then smile at you when you walk in the door.  If your a Male that works here,  it's definitely harder,  watch your back,  especially from the female employees. Not trying to sound sexist,  but this is an adult establishment,  one wrong move around a fellow employee,  and your toast! Doesn't matter if you did or didn't,  corporate shows no mercy to their employees,  especially if they don't fit in to what they deem as a "exceptional" employee.  

Their products are cheap knock offs of name brand stuff in that store,  and sold at the same price too. They want you to badger customers to spend their money on lingerie that's poorly made and then refuse returns. You must prove yourself worthy of the supervisor title,  even if you've been there a long time. Be very careful,  both males and females.  Females get harassed by unruly customers a lot here when working.  A lot of their products are cheap carbon copies of the original products and sold at the same price. They look identical to the original, but are made cheaper. Beware!!

It was often nice working with the store team and customers, but corporate is very out of touch and aways pushing employees to make metrics for net sales, average dollar sales, items per transaction, email sign up, and warranties. It made it very stressful. Also, corporate keeps a tight leash on the running of sores and scheduling. They loose people due to their unrealistic expectations and demands on management, sales, and operations personnel. There are not a lot of training and development opportunities with any real expectations of promotions and raises unless it meets their needs and is convenient for them. Policies and practices are subject to change and often are inconsistent or even often contradictory. In all honesty, I would not recommend this company to anyone. Corporate really just doesn't care about the well being and hard work of their employees. The benefits they advertise are mostly for store managers on up and unsurprisingly do not disclose.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Shift manager 253 salaries reported	$19.77 per hour
Retail sales associate 14 salaries reported	$18.54 per hour
Associate manager 107 salaries reported	$24.67 per hour
Retail assistant manager 9 salaries reported	$23.89 per hour
Processor 6 salaries reported	$16.50 per hour

Working at Castle Megastore: Company Overview and Reviews

Castle Megastore

Castle Megastore Ratings

Popular jobs at Castle Megastore

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected