Pros
I worked at Zara as a full time sales assistant for a year. Okay discount on clothes, always busy and had something to do, never standing around looking for tasks. Don't really have to push product or do any hard selling - the product really sells itself. Frequent breaks in comparison with other places I've worked.
Cons
Where to start. If you are a sales assistant, you will either end up being trained in every section of the store and be totally overwhelmed with tasks, or stand in the fitting rooms hanging clothes for 9 hours a day. There is no in between and whether you get cross trained purely depends on whether management likes you. You will always be run off your feet. Sales periods are some of the most traumatising experiences I've had in my life, and you will be expected to run clothes like it's a normal day when there are 2000+ people in your store. Management have no idea what they're doing, on all levels. Information was communicated very rarely. People that I'd work with for months were sent to other stores without other team members ever being told. Store standards would change for no reason and it could take weeks for all team members to be told. The company is very hierarchical and as a sales assisstant you are at the bottom of the chain, even though you are often expected to have the same knowledge about different areas of the store - say visual merchandising - as managers. Again, this information is rarely communicated. You're just expected to know by osmosis. No work life balance whatsoever - you work long hours 5 days a week, often into the night. Not fun.