retail sales associate

retail store manager

store manager

assistant store manager

retail assistant manager

lovisa

This review is long and detailed, but trust me, you’ll waste less time reading this than working for this company. 

If you’re a college student like me and have received a job offer from here, RUN. They will do everything in their power to exploit your abilities and your time. SEVERAL times they have called my coworkers and I during class lectures, club meetings, and sports practices for us to come in during extremely inconvenient times. If you’re free for literally two to three hours after school ends or anything of the sort, they WILL make you come in, including the days you have off. The worst part is that they expect you to travel to different locations for this coverage, which can be up to an hour away with traffic! If you say no, they’ll make you feel bad about it. The scheduling there is horrible and even though they “follow” your availability, they are CONSTANTLY CALLING YOU on your days off. In reality, it’s like you never leave the workplace even once you step out of the store. 

Management is catty and disorganized. Store managers don’t have any real power, only your regional does, so they are the ones to contact for any issues you have with scheduling. They also watch you like hawks; if any mistakes are made, they call you out either publicly or on one of the million WhatsApp groups you’re in. 

As you can probably tell already, scheduling is abysmal. Very often the regional manager would change the schedules mid-week and give you no time to cancel or rearrange plans you have outside of work. They also wouldn't put out the schedule until literally the day before the week starts, so it's really hard to tell when you're free. I've also received requests to come in less than 24 hours before the shift, and if you deny them, they will ask you questions that are intrusive to your privacy. "Where are you going? What exactly are you doing? How long will you be there for? Oh, you can probably still make it!!!" And if your plans aren't formal enough for them (e.g. hanging out with friends or going on a date), they will make you cancel your plans because they value that work is more important than having a life. This is what bothered me the most, they try SO hard to get into your personal life and evaluate it to their standards. You really are a slave working here. THEY ALSO STALK YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA TO SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING. It's actually insane! There's also favoritism. A coworker who quit before me experienced a lot of bullying from a store manager when she made minimal mistakes. 

For how bent they are on time, it’s shocking (and illegal) to force everyone to clock out by 9:15. If you stay longer (which you WILL be because it’s impossible to close in 15 minutes), you won’t get paid for it. They also edit your schedule if you clock out later. Sounds like a lawsuit to me. If you open on a specific day of the week, you’re also forced to come in earlier than your designated opening time, because they don’t give you enough time to count the registers and clean the entire store top to bottom. You’re also responsible for finding coverage all the time. If you somehow broke your leg and went to the emergency room and are not able to make a shift, they’ll humiliate you and make you feel irresponsible for not finding coverage. 

Store ethic is unhealthy. They pit the associates against each other but pass it off as “healthy competition.” They often ask you questions like, “Do you think you can sell more than her by the end of the day?” and constantly compare you to others. It’s toxic and makes the job WAY more stressful than it should be. Reward is not worth it.

As for job duties, daily processes are relatively simple. It tends to get stressful when collections need to be moved or stored away when customers are in the store. They also expect you to perform a lot of managerial work. This company does their best to wear you out and use you to their best ability without consideration of the associates. You open and close alone often as well. You're also constantly holding big plastic bags of replen and putting these new items out, which was a big hassle because shipment needed to be put out in only 2-3 days. We would get 4-5 boxes at a time with thousands of products in there, so there's a lot of pressure with that as well.

The only good thing I obtained from this job was the friendships I've gained through my coworkers, and the one good store manager I had. You also learn a lot about retail workstyle since this job is fast paced. However, the reward is not worth both the physical and mental exhaust they put you through… and this is JUST as a part-time associate. I can’t imagine working here full time or working in a higher position. 

If you're applying around the same area as me, run. The negatives will all be the same due to everyone knowing each other in this area because we’re all under the same region. You’ll be seeing a lot of the same people, so don’t be like me and assume that your location will be different and nicer, because it won’t.

Understand that their stores are set up so that the associates are barely necessary. You hang jewelry more or less randomly on the display fixtures, scan the barcodes at the register, and count back change. The sooner you accept that all the other stuff is to make themselves feel important, and that they can have a staff turnover rate of 95% every 48 hours, and not lose a cent of business, the sooner you’ll stop taking stuff personally. 

Every day you must copy by hand into the store diary the same information that’s available on the company’s internaldigital app.

Set the KPI targets for the day. Keep track of your progress every hour on the hour, and compare it to the same day’s hourly performance last year, to motivate you.

Set sales goals for your hourly noncomissioned associates, to motivate them. 

Update the entire sales floor every week, including signage updates, minimal changes to planograms which never are, and removing long lists of styles to and from different ranges. 

Process boxes of shipment, which contain hundreds of individually bagged items each, before you get more boxes in. There will always be six boxes to process to start with. You will receive two to three boxes every two to three days. So you have roughly 2,500 to 3,000 items to remove from their individual plastic bags and put away.  

You are not allowed to “rummage” or “sort” the shipment, as they do at literally all other retailers everywhere, because upper management is convinced this wastes time. 

You will sort a few boxes anyway, desperate to meet deadline, and your team will successfully get those boxes finished the next day. Deadline is met for the first time ever. Your regional manager will chew you out for this.

You will submit photos of your completed visual updates, your store diary, your shipping labels, your product recalls, your action plan, your cash record, and other things as assigned, twice a day.

You will record and send a video walk-through of the entire store every night, to prove you are recovering the appearance of the store. 

When you point out to your regional manager that the closing associate is leaving the store in deplorable condition, that closing associate will be promoted to your same position, and your hours will be cut in half.

You will be given four hours a day, four days a week, to finish processing shipment and complete all the floor moves. However, regional manager will schedule a special after-hours shift for the visual project the other manager is responsible for, and personally help out, along with two other associates. 

The backstock organization that you started to implement will be rejected outright by the interim store manager, because we don’t have time for that. The interim manager will complete the backstock reorganization project you started but were forbidden from finishing on your day off, and get a glowing shout-out from upper management in the weekly memo. 

Your ear piercing training will consist of the regional manager calling up to chew you out for not piercing ears. The training module states you should be supervised the first three times, but you need this job so you get started punching holes in people. You will never actually get your piercing certification. It turns out that nobody does.

You clock in and out for the day, but the regional manager subtracts your break time for you. So it will be subtracted whether you took it or not.

You will be scheduled to work alone and won’t be able to take a break.

Learn that CEO of US operations wants payroll hours cut, now that we’re in the thick start of the holiday season.

Realize that people are stealing as much as they’re buying, and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Decide that you’re sticking around out of morbid curiosity, and also because nobody else is hiring.


This is going to be long but trust me you will want to read this before thinking about working for this company 
I absolutely loved the women I worked with they were all amazing individuals hard workers driven but sold on the “ Lovisa culture” emphasis on the first syllable of the second word . 
My training was minimal I could barely work the register at the end of it and the diary’s instructions are non existent confusing and skip crucial steps  
I have worked at every major department store as a lease department manager and can navigate them all so for me to say a register is confusing is no small feat . 
Now to the nitty gritty their “ business model “ 
Daily you  and all of your employees are expected to do the store numbers by hand to “ understand “ the business itself that would not be a problem if not for all the other things expected . It’s all regimented to a T and bright colorful artwork is a part of it yes they expect you to make it look pretty and you take pictures of it and send it to a group chat  . You fill out bank sheets daily again a unnecessary step that a receipt stapled to said paper would suffice . 
Store managers all have Sunday and Monday off sounds like a dream right ? Set days off one a weekend day 
It’s not because on Tuesday you receive your action plan and are generally expected to execute on average 3-6 planograms plus a stock correction factor the random inventory in within a three day period . You submit pictures as they are finished and are incessantly called until you complete it all while helping customers generally by yourself . Stock is left out on the floor as you receive it to create a sense of “ urgency” to be put away again not a problem until you factor in the other tasks plus just cleaning the store itself . All in heels or flats dressed to a tee 
Now onto the main issue I had 
We are in the middle of a Pandemic this isn’t  normal most companies are limiting visuals to limit contact and transmission that is not even a thought in their mind nor the frenetic pace they set that opens you up to further threat of exposure . Every single store is understaffed and overworked by inexperienced employees who have no idea this is not normal . Several employees were exposed to Covid and tested positive one was even asked to come in after showing symptoms  . They expect you to reach your sales goals during a pandemic and lecture you often about it never factoring in what the news itself is saying right now . If there’s a surge people are staying home period it’s not the fault of the employees 
Schedules.... only company I’ve ever worked for  that the store manager does not make it individually . It is made by the regional and changed every other day to fit business needs *cough* illegal *cough*  then to top that off they “ remove “ your breaks for you again *cough* illegal  in retail terms that means you never get one but they take it out anyway unless you remember to tell them not to * cough* wage theft . 
What I came to understand and what I saw is this 
Part timers don’t matter  and are expendable 
Store managers are abused overworked and stressed out constantly 
Regional managers are overworked under a lot of pressure and never get days off 
Upper management and corporate make last minute decisions constantly with no care or concern the pressure it puts on the employees beneath them well because their beneath them and they don’t care 
Their business model is to take advantage of the inexperienced overwork you tack on the world culture and think it makes it ok 
It doesn’t 
This is only the company for you if your a masochist 
I’d rather just pay for therapy 


This company undervalues the amount of work associates put in. I was severely underpaid and so were the stylist who were doing the same- if not more than the managers.

 The company is constantly pressuring add on and piercing sales claiming the store is a piercing shop more than a jewelry store. Ex they want us to ask each customer that walks into the store if they are coming in for a piercing thats like going into victoria secret and being asked if you came in for a bra fitting. It’s ridiculous the things we are supposed to tell customers to push them to buy things.  No one buys add ons they’re a waste of time and yet they keep trying to push a dead idea.

On your day off you will still get text messages about the store and are expected to always check the lola app for updates. It makes work life balance incredibly hard. You will not be able to disconnect from work. Constantly scheduled on holidays.
 
Visuals: The company constantly wants you to rearrange the store. Jewelry that you spent hours moving  one week will inconveniently have to be moved to a different spot next week. The constant moves are pointless and don’t do much for sales it’s one of the most stressful things to take down work you just did just for the company to tell you to rearrange it again. There’s no organization to these moves or logic. 

Hours depend on the store so many people will quit that you may end up running the store as a stylist or on the opposite spectrum work 3 hours a week . They don’t allow callouts unless you find someone to cover you. If you were having an emergency and couldn’t make it they would be more upset about the money they’re losing and still expect you to come in. With less staffed stores which is most you are almost guaranteed to work most holidays.

The closing procedure is ridiculous they have all the information they could ever need but just in case that’s not enough they also want you to write this down in a store diary and then put all that information into an email that you’ll send to higher ups. the email  is dumb there isn’t much else to say on that. The expect you to close fast but there is so much more that has to be done that it’s nearly impossible to clock out at the scheduled time. You will be the one to dust sweep mop and sanitize the entire store. You will do all of this as a manger assistant stylist and keyholder yet stylist will get paid the least for the same amount of work unfortunately.  If this is your first retail job you won’t understand how much your being taken advantage of for minimum wage. The amount of work  is  a lot lower for sales workers  at other stores because it is simply not in fairness to have them doing manager duties when the pay is so low. Some of these stylist are doing their best to keep the store open and lovisa doesn’t seem to care

My experience in leadership at Lovisa was extremely challenging due to inconsistent upper management support and unclear communication.

While expectations around sales, performance, and operational execution were very high, structured training and leadership guidance were limited. Requests for training support (including piercing training and operational clarification) were not consistently addressed, yet team members were still expected to meet performance standards.

There were situations where communication from upper leadership felt dismissive rather than developmental. When seeking clarification on expectations or operational procedures, responses were not always constructive. Feedback was not consistently delivered in a way that supported growth.

Leadership transitions created instability within the team. New managers were placed in high-pressure environments without structured onboarding support. Team morale was impacted during these periods.

Additionally, there was pressure placed on team members regarding performance and operational tasks without adequate training allocation or payroll support to realistically execute those expectations.

The environment requires a very high tolerance for pressure, ambiguity, and minimal hands-on leadership support from upper management.

When I started the motto was “we want you to make mistakes so you can learn from them”. I had no training prior to going straight into everything. The management is extremely poor and they ask for too much from their part time employees. I definitely got taken advantage of multiple times and they continued to do so because I wouldn’t stick up for myself. They would call people in on their days off, not give a consistent schedule (over worked or not working enough). They switch the schedule without letting employees know and expect them to come in at any given time. They don’t allow a lot of growth and they are cheap. As a stylist, which is the baseline position and pay, I was doing everything upper management should have been doing without the pay or title. After working there for a year and being promised the promotion for at least 4-6 months. It’s honestly ridiculous and aside from the people and getting experience in retail, I would never go back. There would be points during holiday season where I would go to the bathroom and cry in the middle of my shift because they treated me like I wasn’t human. I mean asking me to come in while I had a fever and saying “you got this push through” when I could barely even move. It was a learning experience and I definitely grew because of it but the way that company treats their workers is terrible. I don’t want to hate too much because the new manager is very nice and understanding but my overall experience-terrible.

- Rushed hiring process because they are constantly low staffed 
- Started off as store manager, with no training from upper management AT ALL
-I was hired as a store manager and came in to be trained by a key holder (who did the best they could) 
-Unfair standards for the the little to no training provider
-Low hour budgets, leaving schedules where my team members were unexpectedly, completely taken off the schedule for 2 weeks at a time
- Came into the store with months of backed up inventory, made tremendous progress on it and was still ridiculed for not having it completely done
-shifts where you have to sell, pierce, restock, constantly check on customers while only one person working 
-Unprofessional management that talks to you like you are their child
-Constantly micromanaged, having to send pictures of the whole store and displays every morning and every night 
 
Without all the problems with management, the presentation of the store and products are very cute. It would be an enjoyable work environment if upper management actually were realistic with their standards and treated their employees like actual people instead of numbers. I usually love all my jobs as I really try to make the most of them all, but in no way possible could I do that here. Really hoping management takes a hard and unbiased look at themselves so they don't have such a high turnover rate and can actually succeed. 

The stores are beautiful and have nice/affordable products. However, the integration into the business is not ideal. My personal experience is that I was rushed into working at Lovisa a week before I was available to start due to the date of the opening of the new location being bumped up sooner. Me being a nice person, I worked with the people in charge to accommodate this sudden change on my birthday nonetheless. It seems as if there’s a race to open hundreds of stores without having the proper teams to efficiently do so. I was not trained prior to merchandising/ opening the new location. I was “thrown to the wolves” so to speak. We even worked 16 hrs straight through in order to achieve opening “on time” there is no real structure to the business, they seem to have a high turnover and they don’t allow managers to manage the business. As a manager, you cannot do your own stores schedules, you get schedules from the regional with only a week in advance, and the management team does not communicate  effectively.  The trainers that were sent to teach me my job essentially, were not very nice or professional, and their method of recruiting is not effective enough to find & retain top talent. I think this could be a better place to work if the owners would really look at the reviews, apply the changes needed to build a better structure, including better recruiting and training skills. 

Please don’t ignore all the bad reviews they are TRUE. This company is difficult and not in the sense of unable to complete a task. More of to much is asked from the employees. The employees are paid Minimum wage (very minimum) but required to learn how to open and close the store. Basically do management procedures and operations as well. But all while getting paid bare minimum. Also management pay is not much either. There is no bonus and this is not adult job, more of a get you by job. Also new plan o gram changes every other day. Taking photos of the certain area they ask for every morning. All while trying to sell and can not forget scanning areas to make sure all or most product is out. The manager stressed out easily and always on the phone calling for help. But she never really got any. The upper management was no help. They’d say they are there for you but really it’s always “I have 14 stores.. etc.” The regional manager tried her best but it was never much help in the end. As for the state manager he is no help only chimes in when Necessary. Also training was just unorganized from the hotel to where the store was located. Most companies pay for all expenses of training but unless it was “approved” it will not be compensated. Overall this job is for people living with roommates or family still. So apply if your just looking for holiday work or extra cash. Your choice. 

Mannn i don’t even know where to start. This is a great entry position but it’s been pretty chaotic and I’m only a month and a half in lol

Understand this, you will be working all the time. Wether it’s light work such as answering the phone, submitting paperwork, following up… even in your free time you will still have lovisa with u.

The company work culture is strange. It’s like we’re expected to micro manage the SM and then we’re micro managed by the RM. for god sake we can’t even hire a part time a manger without getting approval from our Director 😳 even on this senior of a level.

I could go on and on, but I’m waiting to see when it gets good. The company is going through a lot of restructuring. I get we’re testing waters, and are trying to figure out what’s best. But the amount of turn over this causes is abnormal.  

The pay is horrendous too for store level employees.. and the nerve to wonder why no one sticks around.  How do u realistic expect an 18+ to sustain life working 5-20 hours a week at $12-14.50 wage in this economy 😳?!!! I’m genuinely asking! And they are expecting this pay-rate to generate quality employees??
What needs to happen is PAUSE on expansion. Reinvest that money you would have put into a  store opening in the middle of nowhere back into your current teams. Bring in better pay rates ! We’re piercing ears and noses too. Understand the stress this environment can cause. 

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