TRADE INSIGHT - Retail & Customer Service

The retail and customer service sector encompasses more than your average high street: online retail is booming and the opportunities to build a successful career in the industry are strong!

It is estimated that 50% of all adults currently work or have worked in some form of retail at some point in their careers.

The industry exhibits great diversity by the size of business, region, retail format, sectors, and the nature of goods sold. You can find retail and customer service work across:

Food and Beverage Retail
Fuel, Motor & Mechanical Retail
Hardware, Building & Gardening Retail
Clothing and Footwear Retail
Cross-Selling Department Stores
Furniture and Home goods Retail
Small and Boutique Retail
High Street Retail
High-End Fashion Retail
Online Retail....and many more!

Customer service is also an expanding field, with individuals working in these roles for small, medium, and large organisations across not only the retail areas mentioned above but also in the banking, insurance, and financial services sectors, hospitality sectors, and transport sectors.

Overall, retail and customer service offers a great deal of flexibility in the types of roles you can pursue and how you pursue them. There are a lot of part-time and casual work, which tends to suit students, and longer-term, permanent opportunities too. This flexibility makes it suited to different lifestyles which is one of the reasons it’s a popular pathway for many.

Some larger retail chains with a global presence offer opportunities for staff to work for them in other countries, meaning it’s a career that could take you global.

Entry into the sector is as varied as the roles available, so no matter what academic pathway you choose to pursue, there’ll be an opportunity to start with a retail and customer service career.

What You Could Do?

Job roles in the industry are varied. Some areas may require specialist qualifications, particularly in fashion design or high-end/senior retail or customer service roles. There are also a lot opportunities to grow a career through entry-level positions.

Here is a look at some of the top jobs you could pursue:

Retail Assistant: Retail Sales Assistants are responsible for providing customers with a positive, informative and engaging shopping experience. They may also assist with the coordination and training of other staff, depending on their experience within a given store environment.
Retail Manager: Retail Managers run a store or group of stores successfully. Their day is a mix of working across different business areas, including front-of-store, storage and warehouse, back-office administration, finance and budgeting. They are responsible for ensuring their staff give excellent customer service and monitoring the financial performance to ensure the store achieves Key Performance Indicators (KPI). They may also handle customer complaints and be responsible for stock orders.
Retail Buyer: Retail Buyers are responsible for considering which goods will sell well in particular locations and what prices customers are prepared to pay. They spend a lot of their time researching customer demands and trends by processing store sales and inventory reports. They then use this data to make informed decisions on what stock to order and how much. They can work for a high-street retailer, department stores, warehouses and supermarkets.
Customer Service Assistant: Customer Service Assistants are the first point of contact between a business and customers. They are responsible for assisting customers to do business with the organisation, such as making a purchase, placing an order, getting advice, making a complaint or finding the information they need. They need to be knowledgeable about the processes of the business and services offered to ensure they offer customers a valuable experience.
Customer Service Manager: Customer Service Managers oversee a team or teams of customer service assistants and provide vital support to do their jobs well. This may include giving problem-solving resources, answering complicated or unusual customer requests, hiring and training new staff and providing human resource support, managing KPIs, policies and procedures.
Retail Wholesale & Logistics: In wholesale distribution, goods arriving from a manufacturer are first inventoried, and arrangements are made for shipping goods to the point of sale. You could work as Logistics Manager, Warehouse Manager, Delivery Driver, Accountant and Wholesale Advisor in these roles. It’s a vast component of the retail sector that essentially ensures stores have all the products they need to serve customers.

These job roles are only just scratching the surface!

Each industry segment will also include administrative and other support functions, including marketing, communications, human resources, and accounting.

As more retailers move to deliver online experiences, there are increasing roles for web development, web store management, marketing and online customer service support.

Graduate Employment and Gender Split

A degree isn’t essential for every career pathway in most retail and customer service sectors. Knowing what graduate employment looks like can help set your expectations and make further decisions.

There’s no set degree for retail and customer service but certain fields may help you secure senior roles or lead to graduate-entry careers in some huge sectors, including fashion, marketing, economics, commerce and logistics, or hospitality and tourism.

The Graduates Outcome Survey tracks graduate employment across different industry sectors. Here’s a look at some degrees that could be a great starting point for this industry:

Creative Arts (including Fashion) Graduates in full-time employment: 45.8%
Creative Arts (including Fashion) Graduates in employment overall: 78.7%
Tourism, Hospitality, & Personal Services Graduates in full-time employment: 52.4%
Tourism, Hospitality, & Personal ServicesGraduates in employment overall: 82.4%

Keep in mind that this doesn’t account for graduates working part-time and/or who may have continued to higher studies; these are promising percentages!

*Figures from 2020 survey results.

Gender Split

The gender split across the industry depends on the segment of the sector you work within, but it’s relatively evenly split across the industry:

Males: 46%
Females: 54%

Average Salary

Current surveys in the sector indicate the median salaries for full-time roles in this industry as:

Entry-level Retail Roles: $49-$56,800
Experienced Retail Roles: $58-$72,000
Retail Manager: $73-$97,000
Entry-level Customer Service: $54-$62,000
Customer Service Manager: $72-$115,000

Salaries can be pretty varied, with lower expectations for entry-level roles. Salaries are also determined by several factors, including:

The segment of the industry you work within.
Your job title and seniority.
The amount of experience you have.
Location, some rural areas may pay less than roles in main cities.

Industry Growth

According to the Australian Industry and Skills Committee, retail businesses in Australia are predominantly small and medium-sized enterprises, with 96% of companies having fewer than 20 employees.

Employment in the industry has been steady since 2003, with new job opportunities opening up with the rise of online retail.

Work in the industry is expected to increase slightly by 2024, with the most common jobs – retail assistants and retail managers – seeing continued growth. Storepersons and Wholesale roles are expected to grow by up to 14% by 2024, with the ongoing upward trend of online shopping across all retail sectors.

Customer service roles by phone and online chat are also expected to increase as more retailers move online and need to meet the demand for 24/7 shopping.

Advertising, marketing and public relations roles are also expected to grow in the sector – again, due to online shopping and more businesses seeking to reach bigger target audiences with potentially international customer bases.

Qualifications and Entry Pathways

Entry pathways are varied and will depend heavily on the type of role you want to get into.

Vocational education and training (VET) courses can offer specialised and valuable springboards into retail and customer service careers.

Some of the courses on offer include:

There are also qualifications available for the hospitality sector and warehousing if those are avenues you’d like to pursue. You can also pursue many roles in the sector through:

Scoring an apprenticeship or traineeship: You can start a school-based apprenticeship or traineeship from Yr 9 and work to gain industry-specific qualifications alongside your certificate of education and work experience.
Work experience once you leave school: If you leave school at 16, you can apply for work experience and school-leaver programs in entry-level positions and work your way up over time. Many of these organisations will also support you to gain further professional qualifications. You’ll need a strong skill set and good grades in Maths and English as a minimum.

Requirements will depend on the type of role you want and the company – so make sure you do some research.

Whatever your circumstances, grades or preferred way forward – there’s a qualification pathway that will work for you.

Best Places to Study

Where you choose to study will be dependent on a range of factors, but some universities are rated higher than others for certain subjects.

Here are the top-rated Australian universities for Fashion:

RMIT Melbourne
Melbourne Fashion Institute
Whitehouse
COLLARTS
Australian Institute of Creative Design
NIDA

Here are the top-rated Australian universities for Economics and Commerce:

Monash University
University of Melbourne
University of New South Wales
University of Queensland Australia
Australian National University
University of Technology Sydney
Deakin University

The University's Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars (KLDYS) program is open for applications from Monday 16 August, for high-achieving Year 10 students from all Victorian and select interstate border schools.

Offering access to exclusive University events and academic enrichments activities for two years, the KLDYS Program provides a taste of student life, as well as opportunities to build strong peer networks and a supportive community throughout the final years of secondary school and the transition to university.

How to apply:

The KLDYS Program is committed to selecting one eligible student from every participating school. Students apply via the link to the online application form below and must be endorsed by the school to be selected. Schools may use the online endorsement form link to recommend and rank a maximum of five students.

16 AUGUST 2021: Applications open for current Year 10 students

17 SEPTEMBER 2021: Closing date for student applications

8 OCTOBER 2021: School endorsement deadline

17 NOVEMBER 2021: Schools and students notified of application outcomes.

More information can be found here:: go.unimelb.edu.au/v95i

Student application form:

https://forms.your.unimelb.edu.au/4747094

EMC CAREERS IMPORTANT DATES

Term 3:

Year 12 VTAC & VCAL Pathway Interviews: 15th June-17th September

2022 VET Enrolments - August 16 to September 17

Term 4:

Year 9 Morrisby Testing: 15th October

Year 9 Morrisby lnterviews: 28th -29th October, 3rd-5th November

Year 10 (PtS S2) Campus Experience Excursion Access Monash: 28th Oct*

Year 11 (VCE only) Unioply Access Monash: 24th November*

For more information please see the EMC Careers website: https://www.emccareers.com.au/

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