Last month, Modern Retail published an article called "In 2020, retail workers could no longer be just salespeople" - as the article puts it, "they also had to be safety officers, virtual stylists and shepherds of buy online, pickup in-store orders." That's a lot to take on in addition to also hitting your sales goals during a pandemic.

There's no doubt that the role of a retail worker has been evolving rapidly even before COVID - so said the NY Times back in December of 2019. So with all these changes, the next big question should be whether (and how) compensation should change as well. In most industries, with more responsibility usually comes more money. How can retail payment structures adapt to fit the new mold?

Most retail workers are paid on an hourly basis. The city you live in and what vertical of retail you work in dramatically impacts what that hourly rate might be. Let's look at the data from 2019 (courtesy of Bureau of Labor Statistics). In 2019, the hourly rate in retail ranged from $20.57/hr down to $9.09/hr for the lowest ten percentile. Looking at it by vertical, automobile salespeople typically make the highest, at $21.28/hr, with general merchandise store workers making the least - $12.38/hr. Last perspective: the state with the highest hourly rage average is California at $15.79/hr, and the lowest is South Carolina, with an average wage of $13.07. (As a New York based company, we'd like to point out that our state ranks #4). You can also see what the biggest retail chains pay their hourly workers here - spoiler alert, 40% of them pay less than the lowest ten percentile rate referenced earlier.

While an hourly rate is the standard, there are many other ways to compensate retail workers that may incentivize them to work harder and also increase employee satisfaction.

But in all these cases, the big puzzle piece that's missing is e-commerce. There's no doubt that having a store helps to drive traffic to your website, and at Endear we know that conversations with a salesperson can drive sales online. While retail workers may know that their efforts are only converting online, it can be disheartening when there is no way to prove it or receive credit for it.

Being an omnichannel operation doesn't mean having an online and offline business. It means enabling these two channels to work together, and that should include the way you think about your sales team. Your sales team should be able to receive credit for sales on matter where they happen in the same way they receive credit for in-store purchases. While tracking these conversions can seem challenging, CRMs like Endear were designed to give you better insight into the behaviors of your customers, especially so that you can have a fuller picture of who on your team is moving the needle. With our performance and analytics tracking, you can see not only every store associate's output in terms of customer messaging, but also the way in which these conversations drive sales.

If you are interested in taking a more holistic look at sales, contact us to chat about our modern approach to retail associate compensation and commission practices.