Got a job offer on the ecommerce team? Keep your sanity and run away.
Pros
-The employee discount is great at 40% for Hot Topic and Torrid (except music which is at 20%). And it's stackable with other sales for Hot Topic. -Onsite gym is decent. -Onsite cafeteria is decent and they have cool staff. -Quarterly bonuses based on company performance. -Thirsty Thursdays in the Summer where they drink, except the ecomm team doesn't socialize and doesn't seem to drink either. -The buyers, planning, online marketing, and basically everyone aside from management is really cool. Easy to work with, helpful, and caring. You can enjoy lunch with each other, and have wonderful conversations. Sometimes you wish you could work with the same people just at a different company. And that's about it. The overall company is decent. It's just the terrible ecomm team that's the total opposite.
Cons
Let's see... where to start? Hmm, let's go with the most important part. THE MANAGEMENT. The ecomms team's leaders ship is terrible across the board. From rude and condescending individuals to socially awkward and unapproachable members on the team. You have newer Directors that have made individuals cry and quit, and other's who haven't even been able to hold on to a team due to their condescending and overall just bad attitudes. Within the last year or so, I can count at least 12 people that have left from that team alone. The Online Marketing team seems to have the highest turnover due to poor leadership. While there was a glimpse of hope for some time with a new VP coming in, they killed the dream as they decided to restructure. What's interesting is it isn't so much about office politics that you run to in other companies... it actually isn't that bad when it comes to that. But the poor attitudes and vibe on the team creates a hostile environment that no one wishes to endure for that long. Nepotism runs rampant now, and the management styles and personalities being brought in don't seem to be helping the situation. I won't be surprised if the team loses another 2 or 3 people. Which brings along the next point... HR - HR here is useless. They're aware of a lot of issues with managers and their management styles, but they don't care to do anything about it. Until they do, they should expect the continued turnover that the ecommerce department has had for the last year or so. HR should also replace the medical insurance they offer. It's rough, and they don't even have a real HMO option. It's a useless "EPO" option which doctor offices always mess up billing on. The systems used at Hot Topic are clunky, outdated and sloooow. It's a recognized issue here across all ecommerce internal teams, from production teams to online marketing, everyone is stuck with old nasty tools. The analytics system (coremetrics) is rough and it's something the VP's have acknowledged. Everyone seems to hate to use it. They don't even have a real analytics manager, so there's no focus or emphasis on actual site performance improvements from a data-driven standpoint. The only improvements really have been with changing the shopping cart/ecommerce platform to a much more modern and capable system. With the separation of Hot Topic and Torrid will come down with a rain of problems and I feel sorry for anyone that's left on the Hot Topic side. Hot Topic hasn't had nearly the amount of growth that Torrid has. Torrid will continue to appear as a rock star company and do well. Those left at Hot Topic will struggle to meet company quarterly bonus goals as time goes on. So if you have to pick, go to Torrid. Should you accept a job offer on the ecommerce team on either Hot Topic or Torrid, I truly hope the offer/salary you receive is an astronomical improvement from your last one, as you'd have to be someone who only cared about money to accept and that is the only way it would be worth it to you. I recommend you have an exit plan in preparation as things go down hill. With that said, should you accept, best of luck and may god have mercy on your soul.
