ABC Fine Wine and Spirits – “It is generally a good environment & good for getting a few lines on your resume.”

Pros

The paid training they provide on the products (wine, beer, cigars, etc.) is available & encouraged (with small bonuses) for all employees, not just management & wine consultants. The training is surprisingly comprehensive and useful for selling wine, beer, spirits, etc.

The environment is fun & if you're a decent employee, they will start giving you some management responsibilities pretty quickly. If you are in a bigger store (which most of them are) you can probably make an extra $1 per hour by selling commission items. If you are a people person, it's enjoyable to meet & get to know the customers.

ABC promotes from within & Wine Consultants, Store Managers & Assistant Managers make pretty good money (considering this is retail in FL), with quarterly bonuses & the extra commissions I think they get about $27 - 36k per year. It depends on the store you're in: smaller stores pay managers less & have no wine consultants, larger stores pay managers more & have one or two wine consultants.

Cons

The company becomes more and more corporate each year that passes: no overtime, pay raises are slower & smaller, commission items pay less & less, more pressure to sell their ideal products, more watching on camera to make sure employees follow the dress code & don't use their phones near the registers, less respect from management in general.

This is true of all retail, but customers can be difficult to deal with. There are the super cool kids who don't have their ID's, the occasional extremely drunk person that you are obligated to not serve, & the occasional jerk who thinks you're his assistant programmed to speak when spoken to & give him the best deal in the world on everything he buys while racing around the store to ring up his order & pack it in boxes according to his specifications & carry it to his car while never looking him in the eye or shaking his hand or otherwise identifying yourself as a human being.

Advice to Senior Management

You are on the right track with great training & opening nicer, bigger stores while closing the smaller, older ones.

A little more respect & a little more incentive for your employees would go a long way.