A first-week checklist for new joiners in fashion and apparel retail

A new sales associate begins on the Saturday before Diwali. The floor has three hundred shoppers, a billing queue to the door and a trial room with two broken hooks. She is handed a tag gun and told to help. Within the hour she has hung a clearance tag on a new-season lehenga from last season and sent a customer to the wrong size run. She does not return on Monday.

Clothing, saree, footwear and sportswear stores recruit in rushes, before festive weeks, wedding months and end-of-season sale. The first week is where a joiner either learns the shop or gives up. Adapt the sheet below; it carries notes for each role. For the wider sector view, open the fashion and apparel retail hub.

Day 1, morning: store walk by the manager. Entrance, floor, trial rooms, stockroom, billing counter, alteration corner, fire exit
Day 1: uniform, name badge, locker, break timings, who covers when the associate steps away
Day 1: shift timings for the first week, weekly off and the Saturday and festive rota
Day 2: product walk. Fabrics, fits and size charts. For footwear, size runs and pair matching. For sarees, fall and pico, blouse piece, folding
Day 2: tag reading: style code, size, MRP, season, discount slab
Day 3: customer approach: greeting, asking about the occasion, showing two options not twenty, closing the trial room politely
Day 3: exchange and return rules, alteration lead time, and what to say when a size is not in stock
Day 4: billing counter shadowing: scan, discount authority, payment modes, gift receipt, loyalty enrolment
Day 4: stock basics: goods receipt, tagging, bin location, size-run replenishment from stockroom
Day 5: visual merchandising: how a mannequin is dressed, how a rail is faced, what the weekly planogram says
Day 5: incentive slab and commission read aloud, with one worked bill
Day 6: manager conversation: what felt confusing, what customers asked that you could not answer
Day 7: sign-off, or a second week with a named buddy

Whoever runs the floor, the manager or a shift supervisor, carries the page. The new associate signs beside a line once it has been demonstrated. A buddy from the same shift, normally a senior associate, takes the product walk and the customer approach. The manager reviews on day seven. Head office counts how many sheets come back complete.

• Trial room etiquette. Associates who learn to check pockets and count items going in and out also learn to avoid accusing customers.
• Size runs. A footwear associate who cannot find the mate of a single shoe will fail a customer thrice in one hour.
• Discount authority. A joiner who gives away margin on day two gets scolded on day three.
• Incentive slab. Read it out. Unspoken slabs fuel the quarrels about who served whom.
• Alteration corner. A promised hem date that the tailor cannot meet makes the associate the liar.

Teach three habits in week one. Count items into the trial room and out again. Keep the tag gun and the security tag remover in the manager's drawer, not on the counter. Never leave the cash drawer open while hunting for a size. None of this is about suspicion. They protect the associate who is blamed when a closing count is short and the store has no record of who stood where.

Diwali, Eid, Onam, Pongal, Durga Puja and the wedding months each fill the store in their own way. Tell the joiner the peak hours, the queue plan, the token or tag for trial room waiting and the tea break rota. Open each day with a five-minute huddle on the hero products and the offer. A temp who knows the day's offer sells it. One who learns it from an angry customer does not.

• Fall and pico, blouse piece, zari border, pallu pleating: saree shop shorthand a joiner must hear aloud.
• Size run, half sizes, insole, last and pair matching for footwear counters.
• GSM, drape, stretch recovery and colourfast wash for sportswear and knitwear.
• Markdown slab, EOSS, buy-one-get-one and bill-level coupon: what the discount screen may show.
• Challan, GRN and tag print: the three papers that move stock from truck to rail.

1. 1

   Cashier

   Add till opening and closing, cash count, voucher and gift card handling, and the escalation route for a mismatched count.

2. 2

   Stockroom

   Add goods receipt against the challan, tag printing, bin labels, and the monthly stock take sequence.

3. 3

   Visual merchandiser

   Add the season calendar, window change times and prop store, plus how to work around billing hours.

4. 4

   Tailor or alteration hand

   Add measurement cards, lead time promises and how to hand a garment back to the associate.

For role wording, open the saree shop role pages, and the saree shop training pages for ideas about continued product training. The employee onboarding process shows how this week links to the first ninety days.

Share your outlets and shift pattern on the requirements form and we will fit the sheet to your brand.