Retail Salespersons

People in this career often have these skills:

• Persuasion - Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Service Orientation - Actively looking for ways to help people.
• Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.

• Negotiation - Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.

People in this career often know a lot about:

• Sales and Marketing - Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.

People in this career often have talent in:

• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.

People in this career often do these activities:

• Gather customer or product information to determine customer needs.
• Greet customers, patrons, or visitors.
• Recommend products or services to customers.
• Maintain records of sales or other business transactions.
• Calculate costs of goods or services.

• Process sales or other transactions.
• Set up merchandise displays.
• Answer customer questions about goods or services.
• Review laws or regulations to maintain professional knowledge.
• Reconcile records of sales or other financial transactions.
• Prepare sales or other contracts.
• Demonstrate products to consumers.
• Explain technical product or service information to customers.
• Advise customers on the use of products or services.
• Purchase stocks of merchandise or supplies.
• Monitor inventories of products or materials.
• Estimate costs or terms of sales.
• Package materials or products.
• Assist customers with product selection.
• Monitor work areas to provide security.
• Sell products or services.
• Arrange delivery of goods or services.
• Clean work areas.
• Arrange services or reservations for patrons.

• Hotel, Motel, and Resort Desk Clerks

• Counter and Rental Clerks

• Concierges

• Parts Salespersons

• First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers

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• Bartenders

• Tellers

• Pharmacy Aides