store manager

assistant store manager

retail sales associate

pet groomer

associate

Pet Supermarket

I have been a retail sales associate for PSM for about two months. During this have noticed several things worth mentioning before I would recommend to a new hire.

I was hired at 18 y/o during my final semester of senior year (HS). This was mentioned during my interview session. I made it clear that I needed a Part-Time job (around 20h a week) only to be faced with being scheduled 30 hours at least a week. I was working nearly 5 days a week with only two days off. My M-F shifts are typically 7 hours long from 3pm-10pm. Weekend shifts are typically 9 hour shifts either opening or closing. It's rare to get a mid-day shift here. I hardly ever get out of my shift on time due to fronting the store (For store opening next day), care for animals and Restocking (My store receives new product on Tuesdays and it's expected to be up on the shelves w/i 24hrs). 

Secondly, the pay is terrible for the amount of physical and mental labor put in. I do not receive any commission for the sales that I do. Although fun and interesting sales are shared through the corporate newsletter printed every morning. This company is extremely sales focused and that can be very frustrating. You cannot force someone to buy something they're not interested in. Point. blank. period.

My tasks as a RSA are to have customer interaction with each credit card/ cash holder by building their basket (Adding product and thus sales), advocate (AKA PUSH) for our Exclusive brands most importantly our dog and cat food Performatrin as well as our treats and chews. Do cash register and push for Treats of the month, donations (Monetary or Expiring cans). We do have a rewards program that gets 5 dollars of reward points per every $100 spent. This reward is supposed to be advocated for an additional item for purchase. Taking the discount off the transaction total is frowned upon although not explicitly mentioned by higher-ups.

Regarding animal care: Sell and observe the animals for illness. Feed/water and disinfect bowls/cages routinely. Advocating for products we like is probably the best part about the animals imo. We do separate the sick/bullied animals and bring them into the back room where they receive medication, attention and a quiet environment. They receive the same amount of care as our front animals do. 

Regarding product: Little to no product knowledge given with training besides a quick overview video of our Exclusive brand supplements, food and treats. Not much information is given about the other popular brands like Blue Buffalo, Taste of the Wild, Nutro, Merricks etc. Grocery brands advocated against. 

Other side of this is the physical labor involved. Dog chow bags are heavy and have to be stocked on the shelf or put in "overstock" above the shelves. These bags can go anywhere from 25-40lbs and have to be stacked upside down. Bags are standardized for bag integrity so you have to slap down the kibble so the bag is flat and not lumpy (to increase the number of product that can fit on the shelf). Additionally, there is little to no downtime between tasks. You are consistently on your feet for 7-8 hours with a short break (30min).
We have a CPR (Clean, price, rotate) schedule for our products to ensure quality safe products for our animals. Fitting that task into the workday is difficult when expected to be in customer service mode.

Some Pros to the busy day are the coworkers and animals.

I am happy to say that I love all of my co-workers and have an amazing time working with them. It is a family-esque feeling to the crew that works. Also my managers are incredibly fun as well!

I enjoyed this job a lot at first, my managers let me properly care for the animals and corporate wasn't breathing down our necks. About a year later though, that changed. 

Corporate only cares about sales and track every employees statistics every day on a clipboard, if you don't meet the daily sales goals you'll be scolded by your manager (and if they don't scold you, they are scolded instead). The goals are absolutely ridiculous, especially given the economy. They want you to sell 5 items to every customer, as if we can force someone to buy something they don't need or can't afford. If you do manage to get close to a goal somehow, it will be raised before you get there. 

They tell you to follow customers around the store giving recommendations and sharing monthly specials. You're taught to ask open ended questions and try to force a conversation. Its called "working the floor", and you must immediately drop whatever you're doing when a customer walks in.

You are expected to do EVERYTHING (cleaning, merchandising, paperwork/emails, customer service, cash register, price changes etc) while only having enough payroll provided for 2 employees to be on the clock at a time. Breaks (forced, unpaid) are not breaks. You can't leave because employees can't be in the store alone, and if they need help you have to be there even if you're clocked out.

They say "animals first!" but they are LYING. They could care less if the animals are taken care of if there are other things to be done, it's their last priority. The "store use" limit they provide is not enough to take care of the animals. I spent $300+ of my own money (3 days pay) on toys and chews for the small animals because they were given none, and fought tooth and nail to make sure they weren't kept in inhumanely sized enclosures. I made beds and blankets for the cats so their cages weren't so sparce. I regularly spent breaks cleaning fish tanks as we were never given time to do it on the clock. The animals are neglected unless someone on staff actually cares and uses their own personal resources to help. 

I have never seen so much employee turnover in my life. I only worked there a year and a half and went through 3 store managers. I was the only one left of the original team from when I started. Staffing was so terrible that I worked 3 doubles in a row once because I was LITERALLY the only manager on the team. For 2 months we had 4 employees at the store total. Nobody accepted our job offers because the compensation was pitiful. 

You could never miss a day, cover every shift, do your absolute best every day to keep the store functioning. It doesn't matter. Corporate will still come in and tell you to do better because the invoice binder is blue when it's supposed to be purple, and give you a strike for being 7 minutes late.

Absolutely miserable.

Also, I was paid **$13.50** an hour in a full time management position, this was after 2 "raises" and being at the company over a year. Benefits were fine. 

I never had a problem with coworkers or my managers. These were all common sentiments in not only my coworkers, but employees at other locations as well. The higher ups are completely oblivious to how the world actually works, and really don't care as long as the numbers in the spreadsheet are green (they never are).

A typical day at work was a little bit of everything. Pet care, janitorial duties, manager tasks, customer service, stocking products, running the register, etc. You're essentially a little bit of everything running the store regardless to your position. I learned really vital stuff about different animals, retail as a whole, new info from brand representatives, and a lot of what it takes to run a business. 
Luckily my store was a good one so turn over rates were very low for us and we managed to maintain the same employees constantly with good communication and working together. I was with this business for a little over five years. Depending on the store you land in is really how you'll know what to expect and how to be treated since every store manager and team is different. Workplace culture wasn't too bad at all, my only complaint is how low effort training was for new hires. I witnessed very little being shared or taught and could only do so much to assist or bring attention to better work quality. 

The hardest part of the job was the constant changes in demand, corporate could never make up their minds on new business decisions or new routine tasks they wanted the stores to do. There's a lot asked of you and not a lot of hands to get it done. It's typically yourself and one other employee, the pay is incredibly low for as much as they're asking for. They essentially want associates to come in for extremely short shifts but get a ton of things done. It's just not possible, employee morale was definitely low due to lack of raises or generally good pay. 
I find it ridiculous that they changed their way of giving raises, when I first entered the company, you'd potentially get a very small raise based on your work quality after a review. Now reviews do not come with raises so you basically get to hear about your work quality and have nothing to reinforce that you're being compensated well for that. 
Corporate has a very heavy hand when it comes to their desire for money. They will absolutely put no money towards upgrading stores in need, making a larger commercial presence, or their employees. But they LOVE to demand that numbers and goals are met, when they are not met, you get very nasty emails about your unwillingness to comply to company goals even though you can't force people to buy more stuff or spend more money... Ridiculous. 

The most enjoyable part of the job was the pets, my coworkers, and some regular customers. The employee discount sucks, there's really no benefits to working for them, and it's a struggle to climb the ladder in this business. 

We do so much at work. We take care of all aspects of animal welfare, run the registers, clean constantly, must approach every person who comes in store and have specialized knowledge on really every section of the store (especially food), stock and restock the store, etc. There is a lot of physical labor most days, especially on truck shipment days- food shipments are brutal. There is so much responsibility attached to the job, yet it is clearly set up to be only for people straight out of high school. I don't mean it in a bad way- every job is skilled, and this is a good job at its core. What I mean is, there is absolutely no respect for the workers, as there are absolutely no benefits (not even holiday pay or incentives) and we are paid minimum wage despite the fact we do so much physical labor and need so much specialized knowledge on the animals and food that you have to learn on your own time. The only breaks we get are 30 minute lunch breaks, which is ridiculous given how much labor we provide. The majority of positions are part time and you have to interview into full time, which good luck if your store offers it to more than one or 2 people. People skills are a must and we must talk to everyone who comes in store. Again, so much work, responsibility, and skill needed for a job that the company clearly intends to be a first job from someone straight out of high school or very naive- they take such major advantage out of all of us and expect no one to notice and be thankful for how much they exploit us. There's not even water available in the break room! You do get good hours, but that's either because your store is so understaffed they have no choice, or multiple coworkers are out sick with covid (which current policy states they have to come back to work within a few days or go to work sick, based on store manager discretion). Either way, the hours don't amount to much when you're not paid enough for all the work you do in that time. I would like this job so much more and might even consider it a really awesome job if I were paid even a fraction of what I should be, or got ANY kind of benefits. I love being around all the animals and taking care of them, and it does feel good to do all the physical work as long as you're sensible about it, and you're given a good discount. However, it's just not worth how much you're taken advantage of and how little you're paid, and how can you take advantage of your discount if you can't even afford to pay for bills?

So when I began my career with PSI I was in love! I worked up to an ASM so fast, then a SM. I would’ve worked there 30 years and retired but a lot transpired in a little time. I’m not one to complain or be negative but my experience was down right toxic! Just to start, upper management has ZERO idea of what’s going on. They work from home so no inkling as to what’s going on inside and on the sales floor. They’ll tell you to do something one way, then a different DM or RM will flip it or there a new policy/procedure (this goes on regularly). Honestly, to me it seems like pet Supermarket got bigger then it ever anticipated, leading to very outdated styles. For cycle counts, schedules and invoices it’s all a joke. We are using excel to do schedules. At my new company we use an app/websites to aid in this. So really DM’s and above don’t know what’s going on and don’t ever have a clear answer-if you get one lol. In the beginning the pay seems good (for ASM and up) but then you here what the same title at different retailers are making (and we do so much more especially with animal care, cleaning, maintaining fish systems). Then you realize your working 45-60 hour weeks because they can’t keep anybody-it really begins to drag you down.  If you move up to quickly they’ll look for ways to sabotage you. They say you’ll work with pets but you’ll never have time! Running around for customers, team members, truck, counts and to meet what corporate is asking for don’t think you’ll be playing with that cute kitty lol. It’s a revolving door due to lack of a positive environment, pay, benefits and work/home balance. So for me I was doing the work for myself, an ASM and two key holders-as a FIRST TIME MANAGER. I never had time to breath. Long story short, look around and take these reviews seriously! Ask questions at interviews, read and understand employee policies! I have a good head on my shoulders but I was so stressed I began suffering from insomnia and anxiety. My new company, if you have a day off-your off! Even the district chat has a strict time frame and blackouts for when we can post as they want to ensure we are resting and living our personal lives because this proves for an amazingly productive team member but Pet Supermarket doesn’t see it that way. So shop around for your employer, do your research-a lot of companies are fighting and paying well for talented, fast learning and dedicated new hires! 

Love that I can interact with pets and help people with finding food and care for their animals, however every time I'm off for a day or two I come in to find that policies have changed, yet again, and it feels like I'm starting on day one again. 
You absolutely will be cleaning out animal cages every single morning. You have 90 min to do, while also working the register. Used to be you came in 1 hour before opening, which allowed for 1 animal's cage to be deep cleaned before we open and have most, if not all, the other animals nearly done. Now you're trying to juggle cleaning cages and the morning rush. Oh, and you'll be disciplined if you go over. If you're scared of rats, mice, birds, reptiles, spiders, beware you will need to deal with these animals. Messes are common either from us cleaning the animal cages, the birds, and just customers pets.
There are no dedicated stock workers, everyone does everything (except that management doesn't do the morning animal cleaning, they deal with the fish tanks and register opening/closing)

Customers first! Except that register takes priority, but wait no, if they're asking questions help them first, but keep an eye out in the back if somone needs help with fish. Someone needs to be checked out; but you're elbow deep in the crickets trying to get those counted and now everyone is upset. 

I get it, retail has you running everywhere at all times. But I feel like our store is understaffed. There needs to be 3 employees at all times in order for things to be run smoothly, but corporate won't allow it for whatever reason. OH, and heaven forbid you try to enrich the animals beyond very basic care. Corporate assumes the animals won't be there for very long; maybe a month tops. But in reality some of the more exotic animals (snakes, some of the lizards) stay there for much longer and need better care than a few crickets and a water dish. But the store gets in trouble. 

Do I like the job? On the whole, I'm so so. There are fun moments, but it is at the heart of it just another retail job run by a large corporation that pushes reward cards on people and gets mad at the cashier when we don't get enough sign ups or sell enough items per transaction. (Sorry not sorry, I'm not going to bully people into purchasing 3 more items to meet quota when they're spending $100+ on dog food.)

A typical day as a Store Manager at Pet Supermarket involves juggling the tasks of cashier, animal care specialist, operations manager, sales manager, merchandiser, and general manager all at once. With only enough hours to have one associate with you, it is extremely difficult to complete administrative work plus whatever new re-merchandising project the company has assigned, plus be a front-end sales associate yourself. There is no office, if that gives you an idea. Also, if your only other employee on shift calls out sick, you are stuck running the entire store alone unless you can beg another store for help. Don’t forget you’ll also get called in on your days off for staff calling out because the team is so small, there is nobody else to cover. 

Corporate is changing their mind constantly. They cannot keep a single mission or CEO for more than a year. They constantly promise improvements, updated technology, or new systems and often fail to deliver. They do not keep a consistent stock on anything that comes down from the warehouse, and the deliveries are often incorrect. After having established relationships with vendor representatives, they have expressed frustration with our company for not placing orders that meet our customer demand. They often come in to see their sections empty. No product. None in the system, none being delivered. No new orders placed. Our customers are so frustrated with the inconsistency, but corporate continues to insist that dropping sales are the fault of store managers and associates not implementing enough selling behaviors. As a consumer, I know I would stop shopping somewhere if they did not have my product 50% of the time or more. 

The vast majority of the customers are great people who are enjoyable to talk to. The staff is almost always great and fun. My district manager is a good boss. I just wish the company could establish a clear direction and work on solving the obvious problems at the basic level (inventory, staffing, tech support) before implementing new projects that are not well planned or executed. 

A typical day at work, as an associate would involve running the cash register for most or all of your shifts while completing management-delegated tasks in-between customers. Typically, no one is given a specific role on the floor, so everyone must be at least moderately knowledgable in all things, of course, this means it is important to know when and who to pass a question along to in the event you may no longer be the most helpful or knowledgable on the subject. It's for this reason I think that the job is great for learning if nothing else. In my time here I took away an unbelievable amount of knowledge about animals, and for that I am grateful.
Management at this particular location has long been an issue. There has been a new store manager almost every year for several years. Management with this company is designed to be a close-knit team, which is something that never managed to happen with this location. Management members were catty with one another, and with their associates and it was clear that there was no trust between anyone. The store is dysfunctional, cliquey, and draining. 
The hardest part about the job, aside from this store's specific issues, is often dealing with customers in regards to animal care. Several times I had to give animals to homes I knew would be death sentences because of the way that company policy is set up. 
On the flip side, the most enjoyable aspect of the job for me was when people brought in their pets, rats, ferrets, cats, dogs, were all frequent customer companions that would visit the store. 

I went into this job knowing it was a problem store, and I wanted so badly for it to work out, but unfortunately every time it felt as though things were starting to work out something else would happen and it would bring us back to square one. In general, I would not recommend this job. It was a lot of heart and headache, and until I was given a raise for retention, the job was not worth the pay.

This is a great first job, as it isn’t demanding and is pretty fun. You see many animals and learn a lot about nutrition and pet care. There is often some downtime you can spend for yourself, because there will be times where it is slow or there is genuinely nothing to do. You also learn social skills and grow a great relationship with both the customers and coworkers. However, individual sales goals are extremely important. You will have to learn how to sell and reach a sales goal daily. It can get a bit stressful if your managers are constantly down your throat to try and sell more. 

Managers are usually much down to earth and great to work with, but you need to know how to properly communicate if you want time off. Holidays are difficult to get off, as managers will say those days are off limits to request off, and requests will be case by case. My time here was fine, although there was an odd disconnect between two of the managers. Regardless, they are pretty flexible with schedules.

Overall, this is an alright place to work if you don’t prioritize your paycheck. You get great experience in the pet care industry and learn a lot about health, diet, breeds, and hygiene for pets. I worked here in 2021, and at the time, we were getting paid less than $9 as sales associates. I personally did not believe we got paid fairly for the amount of work we did, at least $10 an hour being a little more fair. Otherwise, my experience was pretty good. 

This job is not for someone with sensitive allergies because you WILL ago home covered in dog hair. You will also need to be able to stand for 4+ hours a day, feel comfortable around bugs, cats, all sorts of dogs, be able to lift 20+ pounds, feel comfortable with ladders and lifting 20+ pounds using those ladders, and overall talking. You will also need to be able to withstand loud noises such as barking, whining, and blow dryers as some locations do have dog washes. You will also need to feel comfortable with constant cleaning.

For management this job has the normal tasking of open/close procedures, scheduling and hiring but its allot more physical work than you may expect. 

For Salaried managers its a required 45 hour work that quickly turns into 50, 60+ hours a week with workload and turnover.  

All the staff including Managers are basically stock people, working pallets of heavy pet food.  They 'talk the talk' of training and couching the team but the pallets are non stop, time consuming and never ending. Even if you get through them quickly its just a few days away from the next Truck with MANY more pallets. 

Hiring can be hard when the pay is lower than other employers, and the work load allot more physical.  This leads to the biggest issue, They hire people without good reference checks from actual past employers. You cant just take an applicants word on past employment history or terminations. 

A common mistake I've seen them make time and time again is They rehire past employees who had extremely poor attendance, tardiness or performance. Also they should NEVER rehire people who were marked as NON Re-Hirable in the past. 

Look for gaps in work history and ask the hard questions. Look for seasoned retail employees and not just people "who like pets" or worked in a much more relaxed animal care environment.  Look for people who can follow policy and not just have a temper tantrum when their "opinion" on animal care is different from the company policy. 

Drug testing would help find better candidates.  

This job can be fun and rewarding but needs to have better "work life balance" and tighter controls on WHO they hire.  

 



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