Five Qualities of an Effective Retail Manager

by Stacey Carroll, Contributing Writer

I worked in retail for about 10 years. Five of that I’ve spent as an assistant manager. Managing retail employees brings with it its own challenges and rewards, and it takes a specific skill set to be successful as a retail manager. Here are the five most important skills of a retail manager:


1. Listen

The most important skill a retail manager can bring to the table is the ability to listen. Retail employees come from a variety of backgrounds; poor, middle class, educated, uneducated. As a manager, you have to be able to listen to all of their stories, ideas, issues, and complaints without being judgmental. You have to be able to offer advice and consolation. You have to be able to detox them from their home lives and focus them on the tasks at hand.


2. Communicate

The second most important skill a retail manager can bring to the table is communication. With communication comes motivation. You have to be able to speak positively and clearly, provide guidance and instruction. These things are paramount to getting the job done. An employee many not understand why a specific shelf needs reset. It is the manager’s job to explain why the shelf is being reset, how it will be reset, and what the end goals are.


3. Be Visible and Approachable

A retail manager must also be visible and approachable. This means being out on the sales floor. If an associate has a question or concern, they need to be able to find the manager without searching the entire store. Most of the questions a retail manager receives are time sensitive.


4. Be Knowledgeable

A retail manager must also be knowledgeable. They have to know their job, but they must also know every other job in the store and be able to explain it, train it, and troubleshoot it. At my last position, we often had problems with the photo software and printer. Assessing the situation quickly was paramount. We always had a long line of customers waiting to see their photos. A paper jam had to be fixed within a matter of minutes. A missing photo had to be found within the same timeframe. Since I was the manager, it was my job to fix it as quickly as possible.


5. Be Helpful

Finally, a retail manager must be willing to help with any task. My own personal motto has always been “I will not ask an employee to do anything that I would not be willing to do myself.” This includes taking out the trash, cleaning bathrooms, resetting and stocking shelves, and running cash registers during times of high customer volume. It speaks volumes to both employees and customers when a manager is willing to do even the most remedial of tasks.

Author Bio:

Stacey Carroll is the author of the thriller series - Avia.  She also authors the paranormal erotica series - The Blooddoll Factory. Stacey grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana. she went to college at Indiana State University (ISU) and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in aerospace in the professional pilot program. She has flown Cessna 152s, Cessna 172s, the Pipe Seneca and the King Air. She also graduated with a minor in computer science that specialized in web design.

She has always been interested in reading and writing, and the first book she was ever read was the Grimms Brother's Fairy tales. From the ages of 6 to 11, she read the Nancy Drew series. By the age of 11, she had graduated to Stephen King novels. A few of her favorites include Carrie, Tommyknockers, The Dark Tower Series up to book 3 (That's where it stopped in the late 80s/ early 90s), Pet Semetary, The Shining, Night Shift, The Stand, It, Cujo, Christine, The Eyes of the Dragon and Thinner (Richard Bachman). In her teen years, she moved on to Anne Rice and got through about four of those books before they degraded. If you've ever read Anne Rice, you know book 5 isn't readable. Stacey has read a couple Harry Potter books as she was introduced to them in the early 2000s, and she's never read or watched anything Twilight or 50 Shades. Sorry. I'm a vampire purist, and nothing needs to be said about the latter. You already know.

She is currently an author and freelance writer. She received an honorable mention in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine in 2008 for a short story entitled The Field. In 2014, she was published in 13 Stories by Us by MacKenzie Publishing.

Other books by Stacey

• AVIA II
• AVIA Memories

---