Dollar Tree Reviews

I don't consider this a con, but a part of the job: Everything DT sells is $1.00 or less, and these stores don't make a small amount of money. This means that if you sell 7,500 pieces/day, you'll need to re-stock the same number of pieces daily to meet sales. Obviously in a multi-price environment, there is much more freedom. It also means that you get massive shipments at least once week that the company expects to be processed within 48 hours. With good planning it's possible, but make no mistake, your success as a store manager will depend largely on your ability to process this freight. For those of you who, like me, come from stores that you were able to keep spotless, it's not going to happen here. You can maintain a store that is somewhat clean, but the amount of merchandise that's being moved, touched and knocked down by customers is insane. In a high-volume store, forget about it. There is significant, but not unreasonable, pressure to meet payroll targets. If your sales are down or are likely to be down, you have to cut employee hours. Getting them back due to strong sales is unlikely, depending on your DM. This does mean that you sometimes have to do grunt work, but if you make a quality schedule and train your employees, this shouldn't be a huge issue--maybe things are worse in low-volume stores, though. 50 hr weeks are expected in my district, actually region. You cannot hire assistant managers, the DMs do; for me, these are the only real cons.

It's obvious the company doesn't trust it's associates. If you're buying something the day you are work (on your break or if you're "shopping on the clock" (which isn't technically allowed) a manager is supposed to ring you up and you are supposed to do an employee sale. If that isn't bad enough, technically each item is supposed to be rung individually. THE PAY!!! Typically non-management associates are paid whatever their state's minimum wage is plus a little (ten cents) but if you're in a bad area you might make a little more. When hired the store manager can try to get you more but you might have a Regional HR Person who doesn't budge over a certain amount. There is a lot expected of each associate (cashiers are supposed to put stuff together, stockers have to meet case counts, etc). You could get a job somewhere else making more money and less physical labor. Plus they give you one 15 cents raise a year (20 cents if you're an ASM) once a year and act they're paying a lot. No control over your warehouse truck. They allow you to order some things but not much. If there's something you see it will let you order and you want to cut back the amount the company is trying to send you cannot cut it back. In addition to no control over your trucks you often get more of what you don't need (bleach) and not enough of what you actually need and often times you don't get enough of a replenished item to pack up your shelves. Not enough help or not enough really good employees because the pay sucks. However many hours the store gets that's for anything that is done on the clock from cashiering to assistant managers. Each employee has computer training that is required when they're hired. The amount of time it takes to complete is based on their position. Managers have at least two hours worth while cashiers have at least close to an hour. It's important and not terribly corny but you get no payroll just for training. Same goes for truck. If you have a slow driver and it takes four hours to unload that's four hours times the amount of hourly associates less you have elsewhere to stock. Ideally the company only wants hourly associates (except for management) working 15 hours a week. If a stocker was helping unload the 4 hour long truck that only give them 11 hours left then subtract the required ten minute breaks for each 4 - 5 hour shift that leaves 10 1/2 hours of stocking. With the pay rate of the company you don't get many stockers who can meet the case counts and help make a noticeable difference in the stock room in 10 1/2 hours of stocking. In addition, the trucks are unloaded piece by piece which takes a while to unload plus not every store has a dock or ability to put down a dock plate. Cheapskate security measures for high theft items. Granted everything is dollar or less but associates and managers see the same things stolen each week. Inventory management is a joke. It's pretty common to either have a mispick/mislabeled items or items sent to the wrong store. You're lucky if it was for your store. I was in a store and on two different occasions had merchandise for three or four different stores in addition to what I was supposed to receive. Truck drivers can't take anything back so you get stuck with it. Here's where inventory really becomes a joke: frozen/dairy is the only thing you can change a balance without going through the process of what's called a cycle count. Everything else you have to request a cycle count, put the numbers in to the computer when the count comes down then a few days later the balance changes. Even then it doesn't seem to do any good. If you didn't get your mislabeled/mispicked items to the shelf or balance changed before inventory the inventory crew will scan the carton labels when counting the stock room so the bad balance will stay. No real incentive for non-management associates to stay. They don't get offered insurance and don't get vacation time. Unless they really like working there or have a certain schedule they don't want to give up they wouldn't be losing much of anything if they left even after quite a few years in. No word processor in the stores. The company doesn't like hand written signs but they don't give you even the most basic included with Windows word processor. Find or create a program so associates can view their schedule online. You've made other things available online now add schedules to it. Sometimes hard to get certain supplies you need or the right amount you need. The pegs for the peg boards and slat walls aren't strong enough to hold the gift bags and table cloths in the party section. If you load too many on a peg or a customer pulls too hard the peg back breaks. Sometimes it breaks a piece of the wall. Then you have to pick up the product and get a new peg. Not enough company wide communication on certain things. If a popular product like cat litter is out of stock in certain D.C.'s or not going to be carried you need to communicate to the stores so they can tell a customer when asked. Snack Zone is a huge con. From the customer's perspective it's a cool idea and great variety. From the associate perspective, it's a big pain to maintain and there are no extra hours for it after your first few weeks of having it. Registers and software seems out of date. Cashiers are limited to what they can do. I know of grocery store cashiers that can do more on their numbers that in Dollar Tree only managers can do. Markdowns are a joke. Mark through the barcode and use a price gun to price the front after reducing it in the machine. Just get a markdown program on the machine, a printer and labels for each store and allow each marked down item to scan at a reduced price so the inventory on the item stays more accurate.