Wayfair (formerly CSN Stores) Reviews

Pros

- It's a meritocracy, so if you do good work you'll have opportunities to advance
- Freedom to make high impact decisions on a daily basis
- Rapid growth creates new roles and flexibility to try new positions
- Great benefits
- Great people
- Competitive salary (recent and very welcome trend)
- Interesting work

Cons

Honestly I don't have any cons right now. Previously I would have said salary, but that is changing. I feel that our salaries are much more competitive now than they have been in the past. I'm getting paid well, learning a lot, and have ample opportunity to grow, so I'm happy.

Pros

- Great experience for anyone looking to get into e-commerce
- Extremely smart, highly-engaged workforce. No one's "mailing it in"
- Meritocracy means that if you're a top performer, your career advances quickly
- Rapid company growth - new roles or initiatives give opportunity for upward or lateral moves
- Open work environment with very little politics
- Young employee base means after-work parties are not to be missed

Cons

- Priorities/strategies can change at drop of a hat, sometimes negating value of prior work
- Communication from the top sometimes lacking, making it difficult to understand why you're doing what you're doing
- Entry-level salaries (category management, operations) are well below market. $32k for top-tier college grads is ridiculous and starts employees off on the wrong foot.
- Customer service employees are clearly unhappy
- Young employee base can also mean a lot of first-time jobs with a high sense of entitlement

Advice to Senior Management

Can't complain with 50%+ growth yearly. Raising entry-level wage scale will go a long way towards better talent acquisition and increasing employee satisfaction. More frequent meetings with junior employees will help keep everyone in the loop and motivated.

Pros

The pace of change and the large amount of responsibility given to individuals are probably the 2 best things about CSN. Together, they create an evironment where you are learning almost every day and, if you are delivering results, will advance your career quickly.

Regarding pace of change, our industry is growing very rapidly with more people shopping online every day. CSN's growth strategy is pretty aggressive so we are growing faster than the market. The growth of mobile and other advances in both technology and the internet are also constantly changing how we reach our customer and how they interact with us. We're keeping up with all the changes and trying to get ahead of most of them. That keeps the pace fast and greats plenty of opportunities to learn new stuff almost every day.

On the responsibility front, when I talk to friends at other companies, it sounds to me like there is a lot less politics at CSN and a lot more individual empowerment than at many other companies. That's refreshing and let's everyone (at least in the Advertising department) have a pretty big impact.

Cons

Growing this fast, there is not always time for lots of formal professional development. There is more now than before but it's mostly on the job that you learn stuff. Given the pace and empowerment, that works for most people but may not be for everyone.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep hiring sharp people and invest more in professional development.

Pros

Young crowd
Free food
Lax dress code
Good benefits for entry-level job
Good work-life balance

Cons

Pay could be better
Little to no benefits for part time employees

Advice to Senior Management

Offer more room for advancement and listen to your employees.

Pros

* revolutionary e-tail business model, pulling away from competitors
* concern for culture and meritocracy that beats almost any other non-professional services firm I've ever seen
* relentless focus on entrepreneurialism
* consistent focus on risk/reward and potential to differentiate lens for all decisions
* caliber of team and quality continuing to improve (and to accelerate)
* flat culture (observe many entry-level to CEO interactions every week)

Cons

* operations can seem sloppy to those who have worked at larger firms
* meritocracy means some can be disgruntled
* large customer service base in Boston office can feel disconnected from management
* always too much to do given very rapid growth; if you don't know how to prioritize, you can drown in potential opportunities

Advice to Senior Management

Invest more time in 'walking the halls' and interacting with junior staff; given open floor plan, a few hours a week meeting junior team members seems the least you can do
Move more entry level jobs outside Boston so salaries can stay in line with cost of living; be more open about hiring outsiders - the current story of 'we promote from within' has left some entry level folks resentful. The caliber of outside hires we're making (amazon, wal*mart, kiva, Bain, cowen, BCG, McKinsey, ...) is stellar; the fact that a lot of fairly young folks have the opportunity to work closely with and learn from that team is amazing
* stay closely linked to the day to day business- let's keep riding this success for a few more years!

Pros

Young, fun environment
Flexible with time off
Opportunity to advance your career
Emerging e-commerce company
Great location
Increase retail and e-commerce expertise

Cons

One of the cons of this position is that some entry positions are very simple and based around data entry. There is not a ton of contact with upper management.

Pros

Having joined CSN after working for several years in finance, I have perspective on what it can be like elsewhere. CSN does a great job developing talent organically and supplementing the organization with people that bring expertise from outside the company. In a terrible housing market and poor economy, we have managed to grow profitably in excess of 50% per year, and have emerged as the online leader in hard goods for the home. The company is agile enough to pursue many growth avenues (Europe, private sale, partnerships with other retailers etc.) as they present themselves, while still focusing on the core strength of direct-to-consumer retail.

Cons

In some areas of the company, pay is below market. I think that's offset by very good benefits (particularly for recent college graduates), excellent work/life balance and an opportunity for top performers to rapidly move up in the company, but it's a valid complaint that's been brought up by many other past and present employees. Additionally, I don't think we always do a great job recognizing hard work and results in a timely, effective manner.

Also, if you're someone that needs a great deal of structure/routine, CSN may not be a great place for you. I think that structure is available for entry-level folks, but as you move up in the company, the entrepreneurial environment tends to be more suited for people that can manage multiple, sometimes competing goals and who thrive in a self-directed atmosphere.

Advice to Senior Management

Generally, I think they're doing a great job. They've brought in many highly talented people to supplement the company's core strengths. As the company continues growing and becomes more profitable, it might not be a bad idea to expand the bonus pool/potential - this is one area where I think we're most below market.

Pros

I've been here for almost three years and I love everything about my job and the opportunities that CSN has giving me. I'm young and already a manager for a 380MM+ company. Great things will happen to those who are patient and continue to work hard. The next 3-5 years will be the most exciting and CSN will be one of the most rewarding places to work for in Boston.

Cons

I love CSN Stores. I have nothing to complain about.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to push us as hard as you can. We won't let you down.

Pros

Sales are booming, especially through Walmart and Amazon partnerships
Lots to learn from Business Intelligence about generating traffic with Google Keyword bidding
Young energetic company
Work Life Balance is Great

Cons

Lack of real leadership & vision from Founders, most VP's and Directors
Senior Management seems very ADD - We spread ourselves thin chasing a different business model every year like our new private sale site or trying to build an advertising business when there's so much on our main sites that is inferior to the competition.
Below market pay in nearly every department (Though this is getting better)
Culture is very "clicky" and high schoolish.
Management doesn't know how to control Margin (We still struggle to even report on it for months at a time)

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on the core business
Hire in stronger, more experienced VP's

Pros

Great location,
Young crowd,
Free food

You can talk to the CEO on any given day because he's not stuck in an office so it makes upper management a bit more accessible. The problem being is that they don't tell you who is management and who isn't so it makes distinctions harder.

Cons

Poor management- I had expressed my concerns and I was told that was just how it is and it was unlikely the top person in the department was willing to help me. So I expressed my concerns which everyone I know were valid and basically was told too bad, deal with it. Last time I checked management is supposed to work with employees to make conditions better and get the job done right and they simply didn't care. My concerns were essentially ignored. In fact when I left they hired a second person to fufill my duties once I left....hmm....I guess I really was doing the work of more than 1 person.

Long hours- I was working 10-12 hours per day and still couldn't catch up with the backlog I walked into accepting my position as freight manager (they were behind by almost 6 months when I got there).
This is mixed with poor management in that I needed help to get work done and asked to have an intern dedicated to what I needed done to spread out the work and reduce my time on task that were time consuming/ bigger waste of time in overall picture. I was told that they wouldn't hire anyone and to use the intern that was already overloaded with tasks or use their offshore team. The problem being here is that they constantly make mistakes that I would have to correct and even though I showed them on a regular basis how to do it they kept making the same mistakes. On top of that they loaded unrealistic expectations onto the offshore team. I know because I did what the offshore team does now at one point ans was the fastest/most efficient person at completing the tasks and even I couldn't do what they were gonna load onto the offshore team. The task and quantity of work they expected was ludicrous, especially if they wanted any sort of quality to go along with it.

Pay is pretty measly- I went with a company that gives me better work and pays me 20% more than I was making at CSN and I was doing higher level/much higer quantities of work at CSN. They seriously need to reevaluate their whole finance department.

Advice to Senior Management

Actually listen to the concerns of your employees instead of giving a tough love speech. Also you need to clear out some of the management that is overworking their staff.