* feedback
How does your store handle holiday time off?
“We have a unique vacation. We work as a team all year, so we can also vacation as a team. During the week of the SEMA show, we close Monday through Friday for the company vacation. I pay for the whole team to fly to Las Vegas, we stay in a timeshare I own just off the strip and we attend the show. The guys are also paid for the week in Vegas, and on the last trip I covered close to one third of the all expenses. I have been doing this for most of the last eight years and it has always been a win. Working through the holidays is usually related to income. When we approach a holiday, our first step is to try to schedule work around the holiday. If someone absolutely wants work done that day, it has to be signifi- cant, and they need to prepay. This only happens about 10 percent of the time, otherwise we close for the day.
When you work in retail, as
I have for the last 15 years, you quickly realize that this is the sea- son that makes or breaks profits for the year. It is important to capital- ize on every opportunity and also to move the old inventory before new products begin shipping after CES. We close on Thanksgiving, Black
Friday and Christmas. Employees are paid regular salaries on the days we are closed.” Ryan Pepsin, SRQ Custom Autosound - Sarasota, Fla.
“We are closed Thanksgiving,
Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. Christmas Eve and New Years Eve we will close around 3pm. Most of our employees would like
to make money during the holidays and take time off at other times of the year. Our employees have family close by so there is no travel
involved for them. We can easily do a quarter of our yearly business in a one-and-a- half month timeframe around the holidays. This is usually the only time of the year we have overtime available. Christmas bonuses are usually provided to employees on a case-by- case basis. We are hoping for $750,000 in sales this year with two full-time sales persons, two full-time install- ers and one bookkeeper/advertising employee.”
Evan Carter, The Drivers Side - Plainville, Mass.
“Our holiday time request does not vary from our standard poli- cy. We require that requests are given to us two weeks in advance. It is a request and could be denied. The first to request will get first consideration for
time off. If a person gets sick or has an emergency, we really just need to be considerate and allow the time needed. We typically close ear- ly for Christmas Eve and are always closed the last day of the year. This extra time allows the employees to plan for time with their families.” Omar Jawad, Sound Depot & Performance – Gainesville, Fla.
“We operate at a crazy fast pace here and my guys always come in early and stay late to deliver on promised deadlines. All employees here are salaried employees. Company policy is that we close
for Thanksgiving and the notorious Black Friday because we never have sales here anyway. We are closed on Christmas Eve,
Christmas Day and the day after.” Micah Williams, Sonus Car Audio – Clarksville, Tenn.
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8 Mobile Electronics January 2014
Mobile Electronics (USPS 957-170) (ISSN#1523-763X) is published bi-monthly, with an additional issue in July, by Mobile Electronics Retailers Association, Inc. 85 Flagship Drive, Suite F, North Andover, MA 01845. Periodicals postage paid at Lawrence, MA 01842- 8887 and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Mobile Electronics PO Box 3186 Redondo Beach, CA 90277. Please allow 6-8 weeks for address changes to take effete. Subscrip- tion Prices - United States $35 per year, Canada $42 per year, Foreign $75 per year, Single copy price - $5; Buyer’s Guide $25. Please allow 6-8 weeks to receive your first issue.
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