store manager

sales associate

retail assistant manager

sales lead

packer

The Vitamin Shoppe

Working with the Vitamin Shoppe has to be one of the worst experiences of my life. I worked in the Woodmere Ohio location from Feb 2013 to August 2013. They made rash and over ambitious promotions within the store without properly interviewing. I personally watched my assistant manager steal products along side the Store Manager. I moved stores to the Mentor Ohio where it was a major difference. Once I settled in, I made the decision to make a HR complaint about the stolen products. Not only did it take months for the company to only tell me they did not find the proper information to charge to terminate the employee's, it showed the lack of follow through within the company. 3 months is not acceptable for an HR investigation for any company. 

Room to Grow?? Forget about it. I can't speak on other stores and district, but I can tell you in that district, it is almost nearly impossible. After speaking with fellow employees who have invested years of employment with the Vitamin shoppe, it was a commonality. Most were concerned that friendships were valued more than talent and growth. Many store managers have personal relationships that borderline inappropriate for the workplace. Many, are relationships outside the workplace. 

Health Enthusiast position is a joke. They speak highly on the value of the position to the company but they almost allow nothing to be done by the Health enthusiasts except help customers and put stock away. For instance, the company has a lot of internal theft problems and they insist on making acquisitions only on those people in those positions. For instance, the emails that are sent to each store are labeled with "Make sure you bag check every health enthusiast before leaving the store". It's blasphemy. they do not trust health enthusiasts and pretty much deem them replaceable. They will fire Health Enthusiasts for anything, but will not properly hold management accountable for anything. 

Hours, that is another joke. You will be promised the hours you will get and then without notice you will be dropped. No discussion, nothing. Many Health enthusiasts fight for hours which creates a riff between employees. Management has no problem with this because they are guaranteed full time as Health Enthusiasts are not. DO NOT EXPECT to receive hours for good work, many if not all Health enthusiasts will tell you this.

Pay...oh goodness. You are expected to know so much information with very little incentive. its just barely above minimum wage. Pair that with the 'hours" fiasco and you have a recipe to 'hate your job".

Product knowledge is another rough topic. They like to hire only gym related "men" as health enthusiasts for the simple fact of the highest income per items, which is protein based items. which would seem like a good idea business wise to relate information to customers, but, with over 10,000 products in store and with an ever changing supplement world, its terrible. they have a program that allows you to learn about each section in the store. However some stores only have one computer. When you have multiple managers using the computer all day for emails, sales goals and other management resources....it's an honest to god pain.  

So with that being said, I would advise anyone to reconsider working with company as it is not a place for people to progress within, enjoy or take serious. I will also state that this specific district in this specific area is one of the worst. that is also another commonality, other districts frequently talk about how they do not wish to be in that district. Mainly because of the District manager. Expect to be held accountable for any mistakes for months if not years. nothing gets resolved at said time but it will be used against you down the road and prevent you from enjoying your job and growing within the company.

you have a better shot at working in Fast Food.

I worked at the Vitamin Shoppe for a little over a year. In the beginning, it was a great environment. We set up our own, new store, and we were all learning on the floor in another store close by. The training through Vitamin Shoppe University is helpful at first, but if you learn at anything past a normal rate, meaning you read an absorb information quickly, it becomes useless after about five months, when you can't go any further because you have finished it before the allotted time period. Store manager was responsible for store operations, inventory accuracy, sales, market activation, recruitment and hiring, and a plethora of other, sometimes menial, tasks. In my particular store, we went through about half a dozen people in a year, most of which were forced to give their resignation (like myself,) for reasons not made clear, or they were threats in the guise of 'not being a motivational fit.' The Vitamin Shoppe is all about the 'Vitamin Shoppe speak'. If you don't speak it, you are doomed to exist at a low level forever. Company sponsored events are only for store managers and above. Nothing is done to educate lower level employees past VSU, though they practically demand you have working knowledge of everything they sell. The dress code is termed business casual, which in VS speak, means khakis (though I got asked not to wear them, because they don't look professional enough,) black slacks, and button down shirts in royal or sky blue (heaven forbid you wear a different shade of blue... they WILL send you home if you even remotely break dress code,) black, or white. They also profess their makeup and jewelry policy is 'minimal,' but I was told I don't wear enough makeup (because I don't like to look like a hooker whilst trying to remain professional.) They are willing to look past things like makeup, jewelry, knowledge, personability, ability to do the job, etc., if you are either a spineless jellyfish who doesn't know too much so they can feel safe with you knowing their secrets, or you are an over-done Pamela Anderson type who teaches hula-hoop classes and you have a degree in Community Fitness, and those are your only qualifying traits. Seriously, that is who they hired at my store, and upon voicing my professional opinion, I was threatened with termination if I continued to be negative. District managers will call you several times a day, sometimes, just to pass off some ridiculous new initiative or task to keep you busy. If you are not selling, you are restocking, moving top-stock around, blocking and facing, rotating, cleaning, etc. If you are in a slow store on a slow day, they assume you will literally FIND things to do. Even if paperwork is caught up, cleaning is done, everything is going according to schedule, and there are no customers. They will always find a way to make you work, even if you just want to take a well-deserved hour break and just read up on some nutritional journals. Again, I cannot stress this enough: NOT the place to work if you wish to advance yourself. They would rather hire someone new than promote from within, regardless of skill, ability, and performance. I cannot speak from the part-time side, but they will refuse to work around your schedule, and force you to decide between school and the job.

Typical Day:  You get to work with your friends and people you sincerely being around, you help customers with their health and wellness  needs, you rotate product, and you do various other operational tasks throughout the day.  

What I Learned:  That you can be promoted to store manager, and take the store from the worst in the district to the best - and then get fired for providing Military, Police and Fire Discounts (evidently it's against company policy, yet I've still not gotten a response from the HR department on my request to review the company policy on discounts.  Oh, by the way GNC makes it well known that they provide a 15% military discount).  In addition, if you are in favor of "double standards" you will love working for THEEEE Vitamin Shoppe.  The District Manger (Dallas) has such a blatant "double standard" policy (ex:  Hey lets make the store manager of the WORST performing store in the district - the field training manager.  Hey, why don't we fire the store manager of the BEST performing store for giving Military, Police and Fire discounts.)  HMMMM.  Not a good business move.

Management:  District Manager and above.....kind of a combination of jellyfish (no spine) and a rodent (sneeky and does things behind your back).  You have your executive management team that has zero background in health and wellness, left a major toy distributor to wreak havoc on a previously well-run, culturally-strong company.  It seems that the Dallas, Tx district has a major turnover rate - probably one of the highest in the company for store managers.  So if you are considering applying to be a store manager - look out, watch your back!!

Co-Workers:  Some of the best people I've ever worked with.  I have created some great long-term friendships with my former co-workers.  I talk to a great deal of them several times per week - that aspect was well worth the investment of my 2.5 years with THEEEE Vitamin Shoppe.

Hardest Part of The Job:  Lack of Leadership above the store level.  Nothing you ever do is ever good enough.  I can count on one hand how many times in almost a year of store management I ever received a positive comment about our team's accomplishments (From anyone).  I have had the luxury of learning a great deal from numerous leadership styles.  I have learned just as much from poor leaders as I have great leaders, and I truly applied lessons from both.  The District Manager that so-called "leads" the Dallas, Tx district is an example of "what not to do" especially with your team members.    

The Best Part of The Job:  Getting to work with people you consider to be your close friends.  And for the most part, getting the opportunity to help customers is a rewarding aspect, especially when a customer returns and specifically tells you they they are feeling so much better due to the suggestion that you made for them.  That's a great feeling!!!!

As said in the title working for the Vitamin Shoppe is difficult when it shouldn't be, and the management makes it that way. At least in my experience at the store I worked at. 

A typical work day is slow with 1-3 small bursts of traffic throughout your shift and this applies to different locations. While not necessarily bad it can get boring and you do tedious and meaningless busywork to make time go by. 
The sales culture is very toxic and immoral. They will push private brand sales so much and I get that its good to get private brand sales, but it's to the point where your recommending a product you know is bad rather than an objectively better product. Immoral to the customer as well as toxic. If you don't push private brand then you get disciplined.  (Receiving discipline may differ from location. Just experienced it at my location).

Scheduling can be quite difficult as they work with a system called smart scheduling. Basically hours are given based off statistics of high traffic hours. While it sounds good for the company, that's entirely all that it is. It doesn't respect the employee's own personal commitments. 

If you're starting out as a health enthusiast/sales associate, good luck finding hours because you get less than 20, and if you move up to a Key holder position be prepared to put a halt to personal goals such as education to work as one. Despite the false assurances of being "Flexible with hours". While they do promote from within, they seem to fail to recognize past work experience and worth. I personally got paid $1.00 more than I was making as a regular associate and that was very insulting. What's even more insulting is that while I'm leaving, the manager wants to demote me rather than allowing me to stay at my current role. This only helps the company very very minutely while reflecting poor on me when it comes to my work experience in the future.

In short the Vitamin Shoppe is very micromanaged to where they only provide the minimum to the employee, while expecting maximum service from the employee.

My only respite from all the bad were the times I got to work alone or with people other than the store manager. Your coworkers are the best thing about this company. Not only are they really cool, but there seems to be a general consensus on how poor the management, scheduling, and pay is.  

If you plan to work for the Vitamin Shoppe I would advise you to push for higher pay and make sure your scheduling is known. Because once you get hired your pay won't change and your schedule won't change. No matter what comes up in your life.

On a small note I want to avoid synecdoche. This is my work experience and it may differ store to store and manager to manager. Vitamin Shoppe is a nice brand and I've shopped there for years. But it was not an ideal place to work.

The Vitamin Shoppe used to be the best place to work. We didn't care so much about how much we made. The typical retail nonsense didn't bother us as much because we were loyal to TVS company, brand, and values. And like all retail the past decade or so, things changed. Senior management got replaced, great people got let go, and the culture took a downward spiral. The "old days" featured stores loaded up with truly passionate, product experts who were willing to do anything for the company and their peers. TVS treated us well and more or less left the product experts to train others and drive results. Sales started to dip however, as Amazon and other online competition started taking a big piece of the pie.

Then, as the new regime took over, things started to improve from a performance standpoint. They rolled out new policies to keep up with the online competitors, brought in newer, more aggressive product lines to compete with the big brands, and gave us the teeth to keep pricing competitive and drive results. 

But unfortunately, as things started to improve, the culture shifted. Micromanaging became commonplace where it was never before. Product education became more about "selling scripts" and if you weren't selling the way they wanted, it became uncomfortable with clientele who you may have known for years. This drove away many of the remaining industry gurus from the company, and combined with the waning job market, they all got replaced with robots who agreed to read the scripts.

The pay was good. The perks used to be good (vendors all but disappeared from our stores...not sure if this was COVID mainly or if there was a relationship shift at corporate). We used to love being there. 

Plain and simply, TVS corporate saw the upshift in sales and store performance as a result of their micromanaging and scripts, when in reality it was the response to a boom in the health and wellness market, and a more aggressive approach to pricing and product selection. Because of it, they doubled down on the nonsense and drove away their most passionate people.

And despite all that, I had a great manager who mostly left me to my own devices because I understood the big picture and drove results i my stores. I would still rank TVS among the top tier of retailers to work for in 2022. But it is retail. You will be told how to sell, regardless of your industry knowledge coming in. And the work/life balance is degrading very fast, although that's a retail problem across the board, not just a TVS problem.

The corporation is interested in becoming a starbucks corporate monster. It only cares about expanding and money. The hard working sales associates that have to know so much about natural health and do most of the work get paid hardly anything. People are hired for higher positions that have never even worked in the health industry and know hardly anything about health. The company seems to just like to show disrespect to the hard workers who do all the work. Its better than slave labor, but for all the money the company has you would think that they would want to pay their workers more. Alot of turnover. It makes me sick to think that this company is so corporate and hardly practices the values and decent human relations that are associated with natural lifestyles. Just another corporate company that overlooks the hard working under paid worker. I have worked there among other health retail stores and attended meetings so I am not just some previous employer who got the short end of the stick and is bitter. Other people will say the same thing about it. The company needs to treat the person who makes the money for it and with more respect and also needs to increase the pay. Fix the computers that take forever to load. It also needs to learn about human relations skills. Quality and happy employess would bring in more sales then expanding and paying minimum wage. The corporates dont seem to get the fact that an unhappy employee is a not a good thing. Unfortuantly there are not many companies that have morals and decent respect for the worker. Their main concern is expanding and becoming a corporate leader in the industry and dont care about whether the associates are educated or happy. A sales associate is responsible for processing shipment from many totes on shipment days, pricing the products, special orders, learning on the computer through the companies training programs, selling to customers and moping or vacuming sweeping cleaning bathrooms and counters and windows and even made me go outside and clean up trash around the paking lot. When a higher up comes into the store you have to be all fake and sell sell sell. Would you like this flyer and vitamin shoppe brand product and how about this that you dont need also? Good just as long as we make a profit. What ever happend to helping others for the sake of helping, and having the money from sales just be the icing on the cake not the main focus.

Your typical day is spent working usually a 8-13 hour shift stocking shelves, working with customers (when you can), and doing a lot of unnecessary (if not redundant) paperwork. You are also responsible for making sure that inventory is spot on, constantly. 
What I learned about managing a store for Vitamin Shoppe was that it's just a surprisingly unhealthy work environment overall. This surprised me, because they sell 'health'. In my case I had a district manager who was probably the most unqualified person to be a DM I have ever run across. She clearly had no understanding of what it meant to be a manager let alone of how to treat people. Even with a decade of management experience, my experience didn't matter at all. It was her way or nothing and VS is not the least interested in your opinions (unless they are ideas that clearly don't build a business). If you needed help or support from your DM, forget about it, you weren't getting it and then to make things worse, it was sometimes spinned that the problem you're having was your fault. VS was to put it simply, a snake pit. Co-workers were okay for the most part. SM's seem to see a lot of turnover for some reason. Hardest part of the job I think was just dealing with my DM because she had like two personalities and you never knew which one you were getting and even then her communication was horrible (again, your fault not hers). Most enjoyable part of the job I would say would've been working with the customers, which I wish I had more time for. Overall, I thought VS was a company that survived by practicing like they were running a actual company. There was no sense of how to do business or of how to treat their staff. I thought they hired seriously unqualified people for certain positions and the people that were qualified either don't last long or aren't hired (probably because they threaten the others because they actually make sensible recommendations). If you're going in as a SM, don't plan on being there long and start looking for a job right away. You're more likely to quit from the dumb stress or get fired. Not a great company at all and it's sad, because they really could be better than their competitors if they just made better business decisions and had better communication with their employees.

There were the typical retail stresses but they made it worse internally  with how they ship product and their archaic method for following sales throughout the day. 
But worst of all is the culture of distrust or how the environment lacks  psychological safety for store managers. 
In all my decades of working in retail and dealing with corporate personnel, have I ever experienced anything close to a panic attack. But here I did. They have a policy for everything and these are hard to find. You develop a fear that one day your going to mess up and get fired over some policy you didn’t know existed. I truly believe it’s their loophole to get rid of you if they decide they want to. 
Most companies today feed their managers updates on sales and other KPIs throughout the day,  but not here.  Every hour you have to do your own readings and math which can take time away from other tasks and the customer. They will tell you the customer is first, stop what you are doing but if you go more then two hours without filling this form out, they will question as to why during an audit. ( Their audits are never the consistent, so you really have no idea how you will get graded). There was one audit I almost failed. I deliberately did it the same way the next time, just to prove to myself that I wasn’t losing my mind… made a 98.. I had even told my associates to continue as is…that is how fed up I had gotten.  We think it was just a way to bring us down a peg or two. 
Oh! There is no computer in the back so all management duties generally have to take place on the sales floor, even schedules, printing of corrections, etc. They want to use your personal email to send sensitive documents. As a store manager, you do not have a work email that is private to the rest of your staff. They are too cheap for you to have one. 
The last thing… micromanaged is an understatement. It’s more than that but I can’t think of a more accurate term at the moment. 
Just to be clear, I left in good standing… only by the grace of God… two week’s notice… many do not. I don’t know how they haven’t shot themselves in the foot with some of the great managers I’ve seen go but it’s just a matter of time. 


1. The Good

The Vitamin Shoppe is a fun and exciting place to work for once you start to get into the rhythm.

Coworkers make it enjoyable and exciting. (Results may vary)

Flexible work schedule. Probably the most adaptable schedule I've ever seen. 

2. The Bad

Once you start to notice the truly ugly side from malicious customers. Some people can really dig deep into your nerves, so it's best to be prepared for every and any client who enters the store. 

low wage (entry level retail. Don't expect high pay starting out)

Lack of security personnel (you will become the eyes and ears for the store when the cameras are out of reach) / plastic barriers at the register.

3. Closing tips

Don't take anything personal, and don't argue with customers. Your coworkers and management will be on your side and they are there to help. 

Sometimes the store will be very busy and you may forget to finish certain assignments. If you're getting ready to close and you suddenly remembered what you were supposed to do. Leave a note for the opening shift crew. 

You will learn a great deal about health/fitness supplementation. Don't waste the courses by speeding through them. Take your time.

Always ask questions that relate to the topic, 
"Are you looking for a particular product?" 
"We're sorry, unfortunately we do not carry that product, would you like to see a similar product?" (Most of the time the customer will say yes, if they say no. Then no means no. Do not, and absolutely do not force a product on a customer)

If a customer exclaims that the prices are too high. It's an unfortunate truth and reality, but there really isn't much that you can do about the prices. So empathize with the customer and listen to what they say. Most of the time, the client will either buy a different product or order the same item through our website, sometimes they will leave.

Familiarize yourself with the regulars. They will appreciate that.

4. Bonus information

Make the best of it. It's not easy, but that's what makes it fun.

Get used to the radio station. You will tone it out after a while.

The culture at The Vitamin Shoppe is top notch, at least my experience. You get to work with great people and that makes a huge difference during the day. THe vitamin Shoppe, even though it is a retail company at the end of the day puts a lot of effort into hiring quality people. They look for positive energy, ability to learn and adapt in an always changing industry and they especially look for a strong willingness to learn. Product knowledge and the passion to learn about health and wellness is of the utmost importance to this company. Even more important is the ability to relay this knowledge with customers and that means they want you to have strong communication/people skills. If you do not have these skills The Vitamin Shoppe is deffinently a company that will help you develop these skills.
As for compensation and pay. Not that great. Its a retail job at the end of the day and you get paid as such. You do not make commission here. It is just an hourly rate and not a good one. The health insurance benefit package is the only thing that reallly stands out. It's a comapny who is all about health and wellness and they back that up with a good health insurance plan.  
Work and Life balance is not that great either. Once again, this is a retail job. You will work weekends. If you are lucky you will get one weeknd off a month. The schedule changes every week. There is no fixed schedule in this company. One week you could be opening the store three days a week and closing it twice a week. The next week you could be closing five nghts a week. They try to divide it up as evenly as they can but the results are mediocre at best. The same goes for when you want time off or are requesting a specific day during the week that you want off for whatever reason, they will try and work with you in order to get you what you want but dont get your hopes up.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Store manager 10 salaries reported	$24.00 per hour
Sales associate 16 salaries reported	$17.84 per hour
Retail assistant manager 6 salaries reported	$14.52 per hour
Sales lead 4 salaries reported	$14.54 per hour
Packer 1 salary reported	$29.49 per hour

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