Pros
I worked for Lancome for close to 9 years, starting as a PT Beauty Advisor and moved up to a Business Manager within a year. I managed 4 different counters throughout my time within 2 different retailers. The business size ranged from less than $200k a year to over $1,5m a year. I feel the best things about this company are their product launches, wide-spread relatability to different clients, advertising and training for beauty advisors/managers.
Cons
The cons seemed to stem more from the retailer side(Macys and Nordstrom), rather than from Lancome. Wages were minimal in contrast to other positions in the industry. The opportunity for advancement used to be great, but dwindled upon closure of many Macys/Nordstrom stores as upper management positions were cut as well. Execs will promise positions if certain benchmarks are met, but will not follow through. Gratis is also lacking. The dollar amount offered every 6 months stayed the same throughout the entirety of my employment, even though retail prices for the products stayed the same(you are given "money" to purchase off the website for redeeming gratis). Towards the end of employment the "full-size" product you used to receive when new product came out started to dwindle to "deluxe sample" size. Company focuses so much of their sales on Gift With Purchase that customers tend to wait for these events and sales in non-promotional times are scarce. Company is constantly competing with itself via lancome.com and its retailers. Come out with more innovative products in a timely fashion. I remember being lightyears behind the newer, "sephora" type brands in terms of is trending at the moment. I know that they started to refrain from training beauty advisors on ingredients and instead on "selling points"...this doesnt work in todays market. People want to know ingredients, what they do, etc. Most people are doing their research before they come into the store, and with all the blogs,etc being so ingreident-driven, you need to be able to compete with this. Especially in skincare!