How to Find the Highest-Paying Clothing Stores Hiring Near You

If you are thinking about taking on a new job in a clothing sales atmosphere, you have a wealth of opportunities awaiting you. Being able to locate a retail sales associate or floor position that pays well and fits your scheduling needs is simply a matter of knowing where and how to look.

The good news about finding a high-paying full-time or part-time clothing store job is that there are a number of indicators that you can learn to spot quickly. There are also plenty of different positions inside each store, so you can find something that suits your personality type.

If you have decided that finding well-paid work in a clothing store is the next career move for you, start searching with Joblist. Read on for more tips on finding a clothing store job you love.

One of the first decisions to make as you look for high-paying clothing stores hiring near you is what kind of job you would like to take on within the store. Some full-time or part-time sales associate positions are considered more front-facing, meaning they deal directly with customers, and others are back-facing, dealing with handling the store’s merchandise.

Depending on the size of the retailer that hires you — regional, national, or international — there may even be remote customer service positions available to help with the flow of eCommerce. The most common jobs you can look for in any high-paying clothing store and their typical job descriptions are:

• Cashier. As the team member who is responsible for more than just handling the money that the store makes each day, this position also requires excellent social skills as you will likely represent customers’ final impression of the store. Being friendly, upbeat, good with math, and patient are all requirements if you plan to work as a cashier. Being able to stand in one spot for long durations of time is also crucial.
• Sales floor associate. Walking around the store, interacting with customers, monitoring pricing and markdowns, helping clients find sizes or colors, running the fitting room, and generally setting the tone of the atmosphere are your main responsibilities in a floor sales associate position. A sales representative is a great job for someone who likes to talk and engage with people and who does not mind being on their feet for most of the workday.
• Merchandising clerk. Merchandisers are focused on the presentation of the store, its contents, and the way that the featured merchandising displayed to customers in front-facing windows, entries, etc. Success in this job will require an eye for catchy layouts, creativity, and overall awareness of trending fashions.

All clothing stores also require stocking clerks and store managers, both of which tend to be back-facing positions with less customer interaction than a sales associate. Stocking clerks usually work behind the scenes to make sure that shipments and deliveries of merchandise are received and cataloged in a reliable manner. This job type might appeal to more introverted workers because it involves less person-to-person interaction and good organization and self-motivation skills.

Retail store managers tend to have years of clothing sales experience and generally have an office within the store wherein they are tasked with a variety of data entry duties. Monitoring sales associate productivity, addressing customer experience concerns, handling company correspondence and sales goals, and making deposits of the day’s revenue are also included in the expected responsibilities of this position. For these reasons, leadership and communication skills are essential for a management position in a high-paying clothing store.

Naturally, the goal of most workers looking for a high-paying job in a clothing store is to make as much money as possible. Salary gaps can range widely in the retail and wholesale clothing industries. Understanding how you will be paid and how to evaluate which stores are likely to pay the most requires a bit of examination into key factors in each store of interest.

Below is a short list of considerations to investigate when determining which clothing store is best set up to offer strong salary expectations.

• Commission, hourly, or salary. Find out exactly how employees at your store of interest receive their paychecks. While set hourly pay might be a more steady income because it will hinge less on changing economic aspects both inside and outside the store, salaried positions may offer more benefits. Many of the highest-paying clothing stores offer commissions to sales associates based on the employee’s personal contributions to sales. Commissions may take the form of a lump sum bonus relative to the dollar value of the sales you have made or figured in relation to an established hourly or salaried rate.
• Employee discounts, bonuses, and perks. When you think of “high pay,” are you only thinking of monetary payment? Consider whether the clothing store you will work for offers employee discounts on merchandise. The money that you will save on whatever you can buy from your workplace is money in your pocket. Likewise, find out if the store you hope to join participates in employee perks. Do they reward good attendance, high sales, or customer satisfaction with gift cards, monetary commissions, or other incentives? All of these factors can make for budgetary enhancements.
• Annual revenue. Take a look at the financials and market reports for the clothing stores to which you are considering applying. Are they doing well despite the economic environment? How are they adapting to digital evolutions in their sector? Remember, their bottom line affects their ability to retain and adequately pay employees.
• Merchandise. Clothing store products will tell you much about the company’s ethos, expected atmosphere, professionalism, and overall culture. Higher-end stores with more expensive merchandise are likely to promote a work environment that is slightly more upscale, enforce a more polished dress code, and may even offer higher commissions or salaries.
• Wholesale or retail. Knowing whether the clothing store that you want to work for is selling garments on a business-to-business model or a business-to-consumer model can inform your expectations for how it handles employee salaries. Working in a wholesale environment often means that you will be dealing primarily with other stores and their employees and, thus, commissions and customer-related bonuses may not be as likely. Retail sales involve dealing with distributors and customers, meaning that the system by which you are paid may tend toward more options.

Working in a high-paying clothing store can bring a lot of advantages beyond just the standard paycheck. If you have been contemplating a career change this year, a clothing store might be the right fit for you due to the flexibility associated with these positions.

Clothing store sales associates generally get first access to the latest styles and, often, discounts on company merchandise. The possibilities of interacting with different people will also be an everyday occurrence — you never know who you might meet. Despite the impact of COVID, many clothing stores see increased seasonal sales and traffic on and around the holidays, being able to plan for additional shifts and pick up supplemental income is always nice, too.

Working in a high-paying clothing store can be a viable and rewarding career for any person who enjoys fashion, likes talking to the public, or has an interest in the guest services or clothing industry as a whole.

With Joblist, you get to set the terms of how you search for your next full-time or part-time clothing store job. Whether you live in New York City, Los Angeles, or somewhere in between, we can provide job alerts relevant only to the specific areas and positions that interest you.

Beyond just streamlining your search for clothing store job postings, check out the Joblist blog for helpful resources on every career-related subject, from the application process to social media. Choosing Joblist as your preferred job search platform today means you can start your next high-paying clothing store job sooner than you think.