Commision based work

odarallo

Heya doing you lot, got another question for you. I recently had a interview with a company that were offering me a job that my wage was only commision based. So there is no basic and i get a 20% of everything that i get sold.

Im kinda wondering is this some kind of scam etc, and is it perfectly legal.

Thanks

Oda

Stark

Legal? Probably. Scam? Probably.

I'd never take a job where I wasn't guaranteed a basic salary that was enough for me to get by on.

WhiteWashMan

not at all.
i know some HP positions in ireland are like this.

its completely legal, its not a scam.

there are many ways to remunerate a position.

nesf

Stark wrote:

Legal? Probably. Scam? Probably.

I'd never take a job where I wasn't guaranteed a basic salary that was enough for me to get by on.

Not necessarily a scam mate. Such positions, if not common, are not that unusual in sales tbh. A lot of people wouldn't take on a job that lacks a basic salary but I know some people that thrive on commission only. Someone who already has the experience and contacts that you need to be sucessful in sales can make an absolute killing working on commission only with a decent percentage. If you are a very good salesperson then working on just commission, or mostly commission, can actually be a good idea for both you and the company. It's a lot easier to motivate yourself to shift more stock than you need to if it's actually worth something tangible to you. That said it can result in overly aggressive sales people, who basically are bad sales people when it comes down to it.



Is the 20% on product price or profit OP? How many units would you need to sell a day to make a living you'd be happy with? Could you match that target on average? These are the kinds of questions you need to be asking yourself.


What I will add actually is this. There are two reasons why a company will offer you a position that is commission only:

a) They make money when you make money (ie when you sell) but they don't lose money when you fail to sell. This makes it a very cost effective way to hire untested sales people. You might hire someone who is very good, and thus will make you money, but you'll keep them because their earnings will be high too. If you hire someone who can't sell for their life, then you don't lose any money beyond whatever you spent in training the person. Generally this is minimised by giving other more established sales people a bonus for training and "making" a good salesperson, sometimes a cut from that person's sales. This means that they don't need to hire dedicated training staff. i.e. saves money again.

b) If you give a sales person good commission they are far more likely to sell more and you are more likely to keep them. Fixed wages do not work well for very talented salespeople. You cannot expect to keep a person if they make you 1 million in profit but you only pay them 35K a year (I've seen this happening in a company).

Stark

Odarallo, what's the company out of interest? Is it a well known company?

odarallo

im not sure what the name of the company is i have done alot of research on the place and comes up with nothing.

i have to sell 2 products a day to make a nice living. I will give it a week trial if i dont get anything ill leave cause i need some kind of basic. cant work for nothing in this world :P

Victor

AFAIK minimum wage legislation still applies, i.e. if you work for 40 hours, you commission must exceed 306 euros.

nesf

Victor wrote:

AFAIK minimum wage legislation still applies, i.e. if you work for 40 hours, you commission must exceed 306 euros.

Not if you are contracted on a self-employed basis. Which generally is the case with these jobs.

CreativeA

NO WAY.. I work in a junior sales role and get a basic salary on top of 20% of all sales.
If it's a commision based only, for a service, you should get about 50%.
Products such as computers are different.

nesf

CreativeA wrote:

Products such as computers are different.

It definitely depends on what you are selling, the sales cycle involved etc etc.