The Junior Sales position is a great place to start ones career in sales. Responsible for selling products, merchandise, and services in a retail setting, such as food, beverages, electronics, clothes, shoes, jewellery, IT services, and furniture. But this person might perform a broad range of tasks to meet the need of the clients. Junior salespersons are the key point of contact between an organisation and its clients: answering queries, offering advice and introducing new products. Promotional prospects are excellent - progression can be into senior sales roles or into related employment areas such as marketing or management.

Tasks:

1. Sell specific products and services to consumers
2. Demonstrate products and show consumers how to maximize their features
3. Discuss warranties and replacement parts
4. Check inventory to ensure product is in stock and stock shelves
5. Bag and package purchases
6. Collect methods of payment and dispense change, operate cash registers, count the day's money transactions at the end of the day
7. Present solutions to furniture buyers including price, credit terms, accurate sales contracts, estimated time of delivery based on firm’s production and delivery schedules
8. Set up display cases and ensure pricing is correct
9. Distribute coupons and verify that coupons are not expired
10. Restock clothes that have been tried on and fold neatly, place clothes on mannequins

Key skills for Junior Salesperson:

• Excellent communications skills
• Willingness to learn
• Sound judgment in stressful situations
• Good organizational skills
• Multi-tasking
• Strong work ethic

Average Salary (2013):

United Kingdom: £19,601 per year
United States of America: $41,386 per year
Australia: AU$42,190 per year

Qualifications and training required:

Most Junior Salesperson positions do not require an education above a high school diploma or its equivalent. However, many companies prefer their salespersons to have at least some college or university experience. Usually companies provide industry-specific in-house training. Training is often required to guarantee the accuracy of the information given to the clients. Additionally, companies often provide telephone and etiquette training prior to a hire beginning his duties. Training may last from few days to 2 months. At some companies junior salespersons must periodically attend short training courses about new services or products.