Sales Compensation Trends in the Retail Industry

Despite the challenge to use variable pay in store sales and customer service jobs populated by teenagers working part-time and turning over every two months, there is a strong business case to put these customer-facing jobs on a performance incentive system. “People are the greatest leverage point for improving productivity,” said David Danesh, Principal at Axiom Consulting Partners. “A well designed variable pay program can motivate the right behaviors, even in retail where attributing the sale can be difficult at the store associate level.”

Axiom Consulting Partners offers its 2nd annual “Sales Compensation Trends in the Retail Industry” in response to the increasing need for retailers to maximize the return on their compensation dollar. This report offers key insights for practitioners responsible for planning and advising senior management on compensation matters. The research report also features industry forecasts, data, trends and insights.

Key findings from the Axiom report, which analyzes the Western Management Group’s survey of Fortune 1000 retailers include:

1) The Sales Supervisor benchmark job is the only non-management job that is eligible for variable pay as a majority practice among all retailers.
2) Variable pay to Sales Associate jobs were only a majority practice among outlet retailers, with 67% of these retailers offering variable pay to sales associates
3) When offered, the highest level of variable pay was found in the Sales Specialist benchmark job, where 40% to 50% of salary is the average target incentive.

Download “Sales Compensation Trends in the Retail Industry” at http://www.axiomcp.com/knowledge.php for more about variable pay and trends in the retail industry for 2007 and beyond.

About Axiom Consulting Partners
Axiom Consulting Partners is a management consulting firm that specializes in hardwiring people to business strategy to deliver improved performance and results. Axiom asks the right questions to uncover and remove disconnects that commonly exist among the boardroom, middle management and front line employees. AxiomÂ’s partners generate insights and develop recommendations for their clients that have a quantifiable business impact

About Western Management Group
Since 1972, Western Management Group (WMG) has been a global leader in the design, development and conduct of compensation surveys. WMGÂ’s practice is dedicated towards providing timely, valid and accurate market data to compensation professionals through the use of state-of-the-art tools and analyses.