retail store manager

retail sales associate

retail assistant manager

Stag Shop

This Christmas, I was intrigued by the concept of marketing strategies and conducted an analysis of the adult entertainment industry, particularly focusing on the significant growth of a company called The Stag Shop. After engaging with a divisional manager and learning about their data-driven decisions for opening new locations, I found their mission statement and values aligning with the LGBTQ+ movement quite appealing. This led me to accept a retail sales associate position at their flagship store in Toronto.

Despite lacking prior experience in this specialized field, I enthusiastically embraced my role, showcasing knowledge and approachability to customers. However, I noticed a stark contrast between my commitment to assisting customers in exploring their interests and the existing staff's behaviors, which often resulted in missed sales goals and a subpar customer experience. The environment became unwelcoming to new talent eager to learn and contribute positively, with key-holding managers openly admitting to leading an underperforming team.

Moreover, there were concerning dynamics within the staff on social media, where employees engaged in activities conflicting with the company's values, particularly regarding professionalism and customer service. I encountered instances of management's online personas diverging from their professional image, which I attempted to understand but was met with unexpected resistance.

Following these experiences, I was let go shortly after joining, prompting reflections on the company's work culture and its impact on new employees. I remain hopeful for an opportunity to discuss my insights and gain clarity on the reasons behind my departure.

If you want a job where there is severe favouritism, blatant and constant discrimination and you get to have absolutely no weekend life, this is the place for you!  From the highest head office employees all the way down to part-time employees. It is the perfect real life creation of mean girls. Every person will talk badly about you, nothing is able to be kept private, the managers will form clicks with their favourites behind your back and treat them better. They try to entice you by talking about commission and incentive products through the store, but you will never get commission and the incentive products take months to come in. The only thing I could say that’s good is that the job can actually be fun, but there are ridiculous rules and policies they expect you to abide by and if you follow one of the policies, they will tell the customer to come back anyways to break the policy, and you will get in trouble, no matter what. Head office will constantly send out reminders of all of the different rules and extra expectations. They place these on you, but you will never be financially compensated for them. There is also extreme secretive information kept from customers when working here. The turnover rate is absolutely ridiculous and you cannot trust a single person you will work with, most people don’t make it through training or three month probation. They also have some of the most inconsistent hours you could imagine, one week you could have six and the next week you could have 35, and don’t ever expect a weekend off. And never expect your managers, head office or HR to be on your side, no matter what you do. 

Stag Shop presents itself as a fun and inclusive environment. However, they will never promote employees to upper management from within and the way they handle what SHOULD be upper management duties is by sloughing it off on in-store employees - who are already overworked and underpaid.
If you want to be able to put event coordination, inventory management, B2B marketing initiatives, team management, etc. on your resume, go for it - but they will never pay you more than minimum wage.
Example - when min. wage went up to $14, they never scaled the wage for assistant managers. Assistant managers were paid the same as keyholders and part time employees... despite the extra duties.
They also expected full time managers to add an additional 6+ hours a month on outside marketing strategies... again, for no extra pay. That should have been a single position, Head Office job.
They are lazy, rude and difficult to deal with at a store level. Even if you DO coordinate an event, good luck getting the materials needed from them in time. We had to write off inventory from the store and be creative just to have something to present at events.
Also, they make everyone work during Pride. If you're not at the store, you're working the parades. That should have been a day off for their employees, considering most of them are queer'n'kinky. All they care about is the bottom line. They do not care about their people.

Only plus side; selling sex toys is fun, but it comes at the price of your soul. Better to work elsewhere.

My experience with StagShop, considering it was at the end of covid-lockdown and businesses were starting to open back up and adjust, has been the most career development I've achieved. I started out as a sales associate + keyholder, and got promoted to store manager with some administrative tasks. I felt mostly fulfilled in my role, and was fortunate enough to collect a lot of experience related to standard store day-to-day operations, hiring team members and providing training, developing my inventory and receiving skills, and partaking in company events and meetings. I felt successful and leveraged the available dependence on the expertise of head office superiors (such as my area manager and the company trainer), who guided and supported the success of the store I was entrusted to operate. Due to personal circumstances with living situation, I unfortunately had to sudden leave, but would highly recommend StagShop as a non-toxic place to work with great culture. 
Like some businesses, there may be a long time to get certain changes/requests fulfilled, dependant on needs of the role, and the departments between stores and head office, but there is good open lines of communication and  support available, and general fairness within the company. 

The pros of this job are; the staff, the occasional cash incentives, laidback environment, and great part-time hours for students.

This is where the pros end, everything else about this company is unprofessional and childish. 

1. Only management/supervisors get full-time hours.
2. Keyholders make no additional money but if you lose your key you're required to pay $300.
3. In the interview, they state you make a commission, however, you only get a commission if your store makes a goal, but employees are never told what that goal is... seems fishy/cheap. 
4. THERE IS NO ROOM FOR GROWTH-seriously don't waste your time no matter what they tell you. 
5. Managers and supervisors are glorified high schoolers (e.g. they make the schedule so guess who has Saturday off, gossip, change rules depending on the employee, etc.).
6. Head Office is rude, unsympathetic, unprofessional, and disorganized.
7. Head office will not provide stores in high crime/high theft areas with security. In addition, locations in small towns are still staffed with one individual despite an employee being beaten in-store (they deliberately hid this from other staff throughout the company).
8. Condone and find workplace harassment comical. 

If you want to do the bare minimum at a slow pace job this is the spot for you, but if you have long term goals and like a fast pace speed probably avoid this job.

It is with great disappointment that I share my experience working at the StagShop Head Office. Unfortunately, my time here has been marked by a glaring lack of inclusivity and the presence of toxic management practices that have left me deeply disheartened.

One of the most prominent issues I observed during my tenure was the management's apparent disregard for promoting diversity within the workplace. The lack of representation of people of color in key positions is not only noticeable but also reflects a fundamental flaw in the organization's commitment to inclusivity. It is disconcerting to see a company of this size and influence failing to prioritize diversity, especially at the leadership level.

The toxic culture perpetuated by the management is another significant concern. Instead of fostering a collaborative and respectful work environment, there is a prevailing sense of negativity and indifference. Communication from the top down is often dismissive, and there is a palpable lack of support for employees. It is disheartening to witness a leadership team that appears more interested in maintaining a toxic status quo than addressing the concerns and well-being of its staff.

Very fun work environment, though certainly not without complaints. Trying to get your voice heard with management sometimes feels like talking to a brick wall. They try to motivate employees with incentives and by dangling that 1% commission payout (which only happens if your store hits its monthly goal) in your face like a carrot on a stick, but they're all difficult to care about when you're being paid minimum wage to be a personal shopper. More often than not, incentive rewards consist of free products, and while free things are nice, I can't pay rent with a vibrator. Mileage may vary depending on which location you work at, but as of writing I've worked at Stag Shop for about 9 months, and I have only seen our store goal hit twice.

One more complaint I have is the hours of operation. My location has hours that go up to 10am-11pm, and quite frankly I do not see why a specialty shop of any sort needs to be open anywhere near that late.

Despite my complaints, I do enjoy my time here, and I have had many positive customer and coworker interactions. These have been my main incentive for continuing to work here, because it certainly isn't the money keeping me here.

Unfortunately the company is not run very well. A lot of the part timers are expected way to much for a measly 4 hours a week and if you ask for more you are scrutinized and made to feel like you're not doing enough, which is basically impossible, when you get hired, work for a week, then are given a key and told to work by yourself. You can't really depend on the management, or upper management. If you have any issues you're told to figure it out on your own and not bother them. Then when you do find a solution, you get in trouble. Right from the start you are told to prioritize stag shop, they will not accommodate having a second job, even though they claim to. I've been purposely scheduled a day I had to work a second job, I was expected to call my second job and request the day off because they were short staffed. if not I would have to find coverage despite giving a schedule well in advance. Or if you need more hours and request a change of schedule, you're threatened to have all your hours taken away. They treat good employees very poorly, and a lot of bullying goes on. Most people don't stay / last more than a few months. In my time there I'd heard some truly unbelievable stories. They claim to give out incentives and commission but you more than likely will not see either of those things. 

Typical day working for their warehouses consisted of wandering around with nothing to do for hours on end. Being given orders to Pick/Pack only to be told they're not ready to be Picked/Packed for the next 8 hours so you might want to brush up on your sweeping skills as that's about all you'll be doing for the time being. Management never keeps in touch with the warehouses so enjoy not knowing what will be happening for the upcoming weeks until minutes beforehand. Will hire new employees to replace hard working ones out of spite. Warehouse employees are treated worse than dirt and feel almost non-existent despite being the reason the stores are able to even operate. Very clique oriented job and if the manager(s) do not like you, you will not last.

I have been with Stag Shop since 2014 and started out as a Store Manager. After about a year of working with my various Head Office departments in that postion and building on the stores sales potential, it was cleat this is somewhere I wanted to stay to grow/progress.  I became an area manager overseeing 5 stores and then eventually became a Regional Sales Manager having 10 stores directly reporting to me.  I am a big believer in making our people happy and give them the tools to operate their stores successfully.  My peers help to ensure we all have a good work life balance so we can enjoy our time off. This is not your typical retail environment as we truly care about educating our customers and provide them with products that will have them returning as repeat customers. If you want somewhere that has you feeling empowered and accomplished Stag Shop is the right place for you. 

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Retail store manager 1 salary reported	$20.25 per hour
Retail sales associate 1 salary reported	$17.20 per hour
Retail assistant manager 1 salary reported	$18.25 per hour

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