sales associate

seasonal associate

supervisor

stylist

store manager

Kate Spade New York

When I applied to this store I was so excited for the opportunity to work at a company I really love and am a fan of. I invested in a new wardrobe and everything in hopes to go in and make the store big sales and work hard. When I was hired I told managers I have full availability and wanted to work as many hours as possible. For the first week I was scheduled 25 hours, which is less than what I would do at my last job but regardless, was okay. Until every week after that I was only SCHEDULED 10 hours a week AT MOST. On my second week, I was scheduled two 4 hour shifts, thank god people called out three days in a row after that and I said yes to picking up three shifts one after another. But I didn’t get that lucky for the rest of my time there. My dad lost his job a couple of months ago and I am the only person in the house working. I needed to work more hours than that, and I was told because I was hired during their busiest time I would be able to work a fair amount. That was anything but the truth, and it was not just me who had this problem. I heard from so many employees, mostly new ones with me, that they were going WEEKS without getting a shift. How are your employees supposed to be strong workers when 1. The store does not train new people AT ALL (ex. I never learned how to operate the register during my entire time there, but I am naturally a very independent and smart worker so I was able to hold my own on the sales floor) and 2. You do not give people the hours to learn and work. Absolutely crazy. I would understand if it was happening to employees who were lazy and did not care but, mind you, as one of their newest employees, customers were going up to the register complimenting me and I was a top seller, with consistently selling over $10,000 worth of product on every shift, and no you don’t get commission on ANY sales you make. I am always looking for opportunities to move up and grow from within a company, I could not see any pathway for me to even REMOTELY grow in the slightest with this company and I could no longer keep my schedule open on days I was not working, sitting by the phone PRAYING they call me in so I could make money, so I had to take a second job. And I know for a fact I was not the only one who had to do so because the managers in this store DO NOT care about the livelihood and pay of their employees. The only recognition I got for my HARD work was a $5 gift card to Starbucks. I did not want a Starbucks gift card. I wanted hours so I could pay bills for my house. 

I really tried to make the best of a bad situation. I went into work every single day with a smile on my face and a great attitude with guests, regardless of how stressed out I was because of how broke I was becoming. But I had no intention on befriending cliquey sales associates or selfish managers. I’m so sad to say, working at this company was a complete waste of my time.

All in all you will get mixed feelings about working in Kate Spade. It is an easy jobs, if it is just a job. Most of the sales employees are great to work with, although as always there are the 3 or 4 that do not belong. There is a very corporal type of atmosphere by some of the supervisors, which is unnecessary. It is sales driven, although there are no compensation nor rewards. Very competitive with some sales associate who do not care about anything but sales while stabbing their coworkers in the back. It is clearly visible. Some employees care some don't, because nothing will happen to those that clearly don't belong. No compensation, except for supervisors' and managements' recognition, who get rewarded for work of sales associate. We are constantly told that "corporate" is coming and we need to look our best and sweep and mop, and yet when they come they are in their worst outfits and don't care that we exist. We get token donuts, once in a while and water, no coffee or tea, small refrigerator, where 20 people try to stuff their food, and there is retail stock even in the bathroom. Some of the supervisor try to make it fun and they are approachable, but they are just one step above sales associate, with power over sales associate, but get to sit when tired! Upper management and KS clearly needs to start caring about their sales employees more than the self advancement of management.  Yes, one more thing, our cars get towed for parking in Woodbury Grounds.  Parking is not a first come basis. We have to park far away or take the bus that never comes from offsite so you must arrive at work an hour earlier to be on time. Now, supervisors never complain, so I feel that they get special privileges for parking rather than sales associate and they are always coming from the other side. So it it a great place to work, it's up to you.

I actually helped open the store in the Gilroy outlets. I enjoyed working on the sales floor. I had mixed feelings only because we were all promised lots of hours at the store and ended up being pretty slow and it went down to like three hours a week. I had one manager that stuck up for most of the employees and another manager that didn’t really do anything. There was a harassment issue were the girls being harassed were being blamed. And then after I went down to three hours I had put in my two weeks and said I was finding a job closer to home because I was coming in from San Jose to Gilroy. But my manager told me to take those two weeks off and think about it because she didn’t want me to go. And before those two weeks were even up I guess somebody put me on the schedule and the other manager left me a nasty message saying basically how dare I not come in to work it’s very unprofessional she was yelling at me on my phone. It was just a very strange message especially since I have never behave that way before I don’t know if they hadn’t communicated with each other or what happened. But I never went back. Saying all this I can’t say what the culture like is there now it’s been so long. I guess if you were to work there some tips would be you can’t have any tattoos showing you can’t have any facial jewelry so no nose rings when you go to work you have to wear a very specific style no hair dye unless it’s natural highlights. They expected me to have my nails done and they preferred we wear heels.They also encouraged us to wear the Kate Spade brand and they did give a bit of a discount and there was kind of a package once a month but the discount wasn’t enough compared to the minimum wage that you make so I couldn’t afford anything. And I think that made them a little upset because I would wear other clothes and customers would come in and ask about the clothes I was wearing.

I worked in the outlet in San Diego and we were for the majority of the time busy so we were never really pressured into selling. However, when we had a slow week it was brutal since they cut everyone's hours by sometimes a whole 4 hours for a scheduled shift. Also being on-call was okay at first but I felt taken advantage of towards the end since I'd be scheduled for multiple ones and you have to call the day of. So if I was on call at 9 am I'd have to call at 7am to figure out if I was going to work an 8 hour shift sometimes. 
My co-workers were awesome though since there was so many of us working all the time it was never boring. That's what I loved about Kate Spade it was always busy so your never just standing around. I do have to say though that if your planning on working here be pro active in learning all aspects of the job since their training here is very poor.. They believe in "learn as you go". So I had to tell customers over the phone or in person things like "sorry, I can't help you with a send sale I'm still not trained to do that.." or even when in my first month I still wasn't trained on the cash register so if I can clearly see a customer waiting I had to stay in my zone and call for someone to come ring them up etc. It made me feel kinda useless to the customer. Oh which reminds me, supervisors always gave me mixed commands and guidelines. They always had mixed info so most of the time I'd go straight to our store manager to figure out which piece of info was accurate. But all in all it's a great place to work to learn about retail. I'd go back in a heart beat. There's a lot of learning to be done.

Our business opened at 10 Am each day. The operations of opening were minimal, and rather pleasant. Working with the Kate spade brand would in itself be an adventure. Most of our guest were from Asia. In their country our product would be 4 to 5 times what we had as a MSRP. These were enormous figures, and not many would purchase. In our country, it is more affordable to all. I would establish a Consultant/ Guest relationship, that would in turn be a opportunity for more movement of the product. Each Associate had their own Clientele book and would keep each guest informed on any upcoming sales/promotions. Our store also worked with send sales, (which were exciting) to accommodate each Client. We worked as a team ensuring that all received the sale/credit for his or her outreach.

Contest would be held to keep the excitement in the store and on the floor.

　

Business Analysis and Communication. Customer Experience and Client Development Standards. Product Knowledge and Training. Client Outreach. Recruiting and Interviewing. New Hire Process. Associate File Maintenance. Scheduling and Payroll. Associate On-Board Training. Benefits and HR Communications. Performance Appraisals. Store Operations and Initiatives. Inventory Control Standards. Office and Stockroom Organizations and Standards. Sales Audit and Media Standards. Technology -Communication and Follow up.Loss Prevention, Security and Banking Standards. Worked with the HR programs such as People Soft.

Kate Spade New York is a fun, exciting place to work with plenty for a sales associate to do in order to build sales and keep busy throughout the day. Maintaining an excellent, up-to-date client sales book is essential for this job, and while challenging, is the best way to really connect with clients and build relationships.

Kate Spade's culture is one of color, adventure, and individualism. The sales staff supports and encourages each girl to be the best she or he can be, and management expects nothing but the best from the associates.

Unfortunately, after devoting two years to the company, I was not allowed to go home to visit family for the holidays because of strictly enforced "blackout dates," days blacked out on the calendar around the holidays when no one can take vacation time. This is fairly common in retail, but sometimes they are flexible. Instead of receiving harsh punishment for tickets I bought back in August, I decided to resign.

This company pays sales associates well (plus commission), and after a year, part-timers can receive part-time benefits. Management and those in charge can be a little (or a lot) disorganized at times, leading to some frustration. It might have been just in my district, but upper management was pretty hands off, even when our store was unceremoniously lifted of a store manager for almost seven months.

All in all, Kate Spade New York is a good place to work. You learn a lot about how to work with people, how to sell to people, and how to create and maintain relationships beyond the workplace.

I worked at Kate Spade for an average 5 months as a “senior sales” assosicate. I was told there is room for advancement upon being interviewed so I went into my job with a lot of hope. After having to purchase a new wardrobe, as dress code was the main topic of training, I was set free. Luckily I had previous sales experience, for my other co-workers who were just starting their first job, it wasn’t so easy. The manager who had hired me was realitively new as well and that was very clear. Soon after being hired it became an extremely hostile work environment. Everyone was on edge around the new manager who was very aggressive with her “leadership” attempts. After a confrentation about my aviliblilty, which was discussed in my interview, my hours were drastically cut. From a promised 25-30 hours to suddenly to 10. Then to 4... soon after to NONE. I saw it as a way to punish me for speaking up for myself and found out this was the case for other workers as well. Soon after the AM was ‘let go’ and a new Supervisor was hired who has an extensive criminal record as well as a very poor team work ethic and that is when I decided my time there was up. Would NOT reccomend this Kate Spade to anyone who likes to enjoy their life outside of work. Selling purses shouldn’t be this stressful and at the end of the day a company is only as strong as it’s team behind them.

For the company: I Started off as a pt stylist and was quickly offered the supervisor management position. This position technically works under the Assistant Manager, yet there is absolutely no difference between the roles other than pay, which is only $18 for Supervisors and approximately $21 for Assistants. This all depends on how much your store makes. The hours you're given per week is also dependent on your stores sales. There were weeks I was working only 20 hours as management. I was given the visual merchandising lead role, which is the hardest role to take on between the other few, and was given limited support among my other management other than my store manager and my second district leader. It entirely depends on the team you have and how they handle things around your store, but as a company they need to get better about setting boundaries between roles and their duties

For my specific store: Its a small store located in an outlet mall, which doesn't see much traffic. Because of this, there was a lot of down time perfect for tasks and productivity around the store. The problem in my store was my other Supervisors and Assistant Manager would simply stand around and talk. I would bring this up to my Store Manager on a handful of occasions, and nothing would be delt with after. Being told I was a value to her team and was eventually given a $1.50 raise in consideration of my hard work, I couldn't stand by and pick up the slack everyday anymore.

I liked working at Kate Spade and was super excited when I was brought on. Selling to the customers was fun and selling your personal favorite pieces in the store was even better and I really enjoyed it for sometime. For the most part all the sales associates were really nice and fun to work around. 

The biggest downfall of this company is the expectations that are given to the managers from corporate and the managers not knowing how to implement these requirements. Management did not adequately train any of the newer sales associates but expected the world from them. Management at my specific location was also horrible with scheduling and hiring. There would be times where people were getting 4 hours a week and management would act surprised when there were no calls no shows. This company has unrealistic expectations with not enough compensation. You can't expect people to love where they work and dedicate their time to it if they're getting 0 to 4 hours a week, sorry. Kate Spade is a very sales-driven company, which I love, but it's hard to sell when you have someone gawking in your ear constantly about what you're not doing but with no tips on how to do it better or improve! 

And not to mention when I was brought on board I was promised at least 28 hours a week and that ended up being around 10 to 15 hours a week. You can probably guess why I left.

The store has some good products but there are too many managers and no other full-time employees. All employees except the managers are considered part-time so no benefits are provided and the pay is just above minimum wage with no sales commissions. Managers are nice but constantly on you since there are so many of them with not much to do. Sometimes we have three to four managers working at the same time, this makes zero sense, based on the store size, there should only be one general manager with a max of two assistant managers total. A one-hour manager overlap should be the max at any time. This management format makes zero sense and makes me question if the corporate office pays any attention to what happens in it's stores, if it did this would never be allowed.
There are sales goals with no personal rewards for your sales. I think that having fewer employees who receive better pay to include a commission on all sales would benefit this company. This current pay structure guarantees to have a high employee turnover with low loyalty. Very poor format for a company that is supposed to project high quality and sophistication, they sure don't treat their employees this way. 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Sales associate 29 salaries reported	$15.58 per hour
Seasonal associate 27 salaries reported	$15.52 per hour
Supervisor 14 salaries reported	$19.29 per hour
Stylist 33 salaries reported	$15.67 per hour
Store manager 9 salaries reported	$46,310 per year

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