Carson Pirie Scott

I’ve always loved to shop at carsons. Especially this one. As anyone who has stepped anywhere near Charlestowne in the last 15 or more years knows, it is a vast waste land of nothingness. The good is no one is ever in this store. You can literally walk in and be the only customer. Also, they carry Lancome cosmetics and you can take all the time you want at the counter.
The bad (in order of annoyance) is the coupons. I have been very excited to receive a $ 10 coupon or the goodwill coupons, etc. I am not kidding when I say you can use them on a handful of items. No bonus buys, no incredible value, no sale items, etc., etc. For this reason I save myself the headache/​stress and don’t use their stupid coupons.
Also, merchandise has gotten cheap. And I don’t mean price. Quality. Speaking of merchandise/​clothing I feel as though this store gets all the reject clothing from every other carsons? I’m not sure of this but wow, sometimes the women’s/juniors dept. looks like K-​Mart.
Finally, I am up in the air about the employees. A few have been helpful and kind. Esp the girl at the Lancome counter (shout out). But, they def have some less than enthusiastic employees here. Case in point, at the register buying a jacket and come to find out coupon would not work (shock!). We bought a few other shirts. She wanted us to take the jacket down to men’s. When I nicely asked her if she wouldn’t mind doing that, she rolled her eyes and slammed the coat down.
Okay, review way too long. But in conclusion (lol) this is all for nothing I am sure because how long can this store really sustain itself on a handful of customers a day?

As a former Carson’s employee, I have to say, I have never worked for such a cheap corporation, that treated their employees like indentured servants.
Work hours were all over the place. One day, you could be scheduled to come in at 12:45, and get off at 9:45. The next day, in at 7:00 am, to work on stock before the store opened. People were spread very thin, even if you were hired to work on the sales floor, they’d have you unloading stock, which involved heavy lifting.
The store had inadequate, used equipment to work with. The phones were old style touch tones, that were leftover from the 80’s. The registers were relics from a previous decade as well. The worst, most demoralizing experience was the yearly reviews. No matter how hard you worked, despite any positive comments from customers, if you didn’t meet your quota for opening instant credit accounts, you’d get an unfavorable review, and no raise. The raises were mere pittances of 10 to 15 cents. Certainly not conducive to any cost of living.
A group of employees were laid off, replaced by part time workers with no benefits. The CEO’s, and other management don’t understand why the sales at Carson’s are down. I can enlighten them to the fact that the reason why their sales are down, 1. Most of their longtime, experienced associates have been let go, the new workers have little to no experience in retail, they find out how bad the working conditions are, and they quit. 2. Customers are frustrated that there is not enough help, tired of waiting in long lines, inevitably, they’ll shop elsewhere where there are less hassles, and better service. 3. Due to the fact that there are fewer employees around, the stores have become a shoplifters paradise, resulting in high theft rates.
I feel there is a great need for a retail worker’s union, to ensure that employees are paid a decent wage, and have better working conditions, with greater job security. It is long overdue.

This place is really cool for shopping. They have stuff for the entire family. They have designer shoes, clothes, accessories, home good, and even luggage. Their prices are cheap and i always get good deals here.