Pros
If you love the store, you get to work in a place you love, selling products you love! Lots of training, including role playing with management and take-home guides so you can "study". Get to see and try new products before they hit the sales floor. Emphasis is on customer service and making the customer feel happy and welcomed, rather than hard selling. Training sessions and floorsets mean extra hours. Cross-brand discounts. Friendly people. Unlike a lot of retail stores, my hours during the holidays were great and not too crazy. I actually got to work a solid 20 hours a week, unlike the rest of the year.
Cons
Very few hours compared with most retail stores. I was lucky to get scheduled more than one shift per week. Call in hours. 99% of the time they did not need me so it was a waste and an annoyance. Some weeks I would get more call-in shifts than actual shifts! Floorsets that can last past midnight. And though we always had food available, we would work 6+ hours straight without any real break. There were a few management "favorites" that would get all the good hours and shifts. A few of these "favorites" would be promoted to sales leads. Too much of an emphasis on average dollar per sale (ADS). If you live in a market with a bad economy and most of your customers are kids buying chapstick, it was hard to get to a $25 ADS much of the time.