I'm relatively new to MS, have been doing a couple shops a week for about four months now. All of my shops have been close to home, but I'm considering tackling a route or two on my days off from my full-time job.

Logistically, how do you go about planning a MS route? I'm flexible as far as where I go, I'm actually just looking to enjoy the road trip.

I've learned from this forum that I need to sign up with a LOT more MSC's. Working on that now. But with each MSC added, it seems like it'll be that much more complex to plan a route. Any advice much appreciated!

There are many people here who know more about routes than I do, so pay more attention to them than to me.

I think that one thing that works is to look for an 'anchor', a shop or shops that will have you at least breaking even. Then, add others along the way, whether it's a straight line out and back, or a loop. Pay close attention to the time that the shops have to be done, as well as their locations. Look first at the MSCs where you can self-assign. It's a lot easier to fit those pieces into place than to wait for schedulers to make up their minds.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2014 07:16AM by Ishmael.

Technically a route is any group of shops so it can be in your own neighborhood or city. I practiced by going a little farther out while still remaining in town so if things didn't go well it was easy to go back out and complete anything I couldn't get to the first day.

When you start getting into longer routes it will be best to avoid shops with small windows like fast food. My first one day gas station route was about 240 miles down one interstate. Rather than drive to the farthest city first, I completed stations on the right side of the highway, and repeated it on the way back. I also stuck with the same types of shops in order to get a rhythm going.

Building a route with just self-assign companies isn't always possible. Even if you can self-assign, you may have to get a scheduler involved if you need bonuses. Waiting on applications can also be problematic and put you in the position of having to either cancel a shop or drive 50 miles out of your way for $10 or $15. Look at the shops on your potential route and contact the schedulers directly to explain you are trying to put together a route. If one scheduler has a chunk of jobs you are good. If you are cobbling together a route from multiple companies it is a good idea to tell the schedulers the route will be dependent on getting all or most of the jobs. Let them know you will be able to make a commitment by the following day or within 48 hours.

Unless you love writing narratives and/or can knock them out quickly, avoid too many narrative intensive shops. The most important thing to me is report deadlines. Unless you want to leave home at 7 or 8 am, return in the evening and stay up all night, ask MSCs with midnight deadlines for extensions. Most will accommodate you on a route.

Ishmael Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I think that one thing that works is to look for
> an 'anchor', a shop or shops that will have you at
> least breaking even. Then, add others along the
> way, whether it's a straight line out and back, or
> a loop.

Ishmael, when you look for an anchor (as well as shops along the way), do you simply expand the number of miles from home when you search for shops on the MSC's job board? Or does it work better to choose a destination and search for a potential anchor shop nearby?

LisaSTL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Technically a route is any group of shops so it
> can be in your own neighborhood or city. I
> practiced by going a little farther out while
> still remaining in town so if things didn't go
> well it was easy to go back out and complete
> anything I couldn't get to the first day.
>

>
> Building a route with just self-assign companies
> isn't always possible. Even if you can
> self-assign, you may have to get a scheduler
> involved if you need bonuses. Waiting on
> applications can also be problematic and put you
> in the position of having to either cancel a shop
> or drive 50 miles out of your way for $10 or $15.
> Look at the shops on your potential route and
> contact the schedulers directly to explain you are
> trying to put together a route. If one scheduler
> has a chunk of jobs you are good. If you are
> cobbling together a route from multiple companies
> it is a good idea to tell the schedulers the route
> will be dependent on getting all or most of the
> jobs. Let them know you will be able to make a
> commitment by the following day or within 48
> hours.


LisaSTL, it sounds like I need to work on building relationships with schedulers. I've been thinking of them as big, bad boogie monsters whom I'll have to beg for an extension in an emergency. Instead, I should think of them as part of my team. I've seen the "don't contact the scheduler to find out if you've been assigned this shop" notices when I apply for shops. Which has enhanced the boogie monster impression. In the future, I won't be shy about contacting schedulers if we can help each other knock out a string of shops.

I appreciate your advice about planning a few routes closer to home first. That totally makes sense and will give me a good feel for performing several shops in one day. So far, the most I've done is five, four of which were shopping mall retailers that the MSC required to be done by the same shopper.

Let me add this. A route should not contain a large percentage of new to you shops. You really want to have at least half or more to be shops you are familiar with so you have a good idea of how long you will be there and how long the reports will take. Even then you should always allow more time than you think it will all take.

There is also a difference between contacting a scheduler just to ask if a shop has been assigned and contacting them regarding a route. One company regularly says shoppers should not contact schedulers. When they have three to five shops in my local mall I will shoot them an email after applying. My email is just to tell them I need all of the shops to justify the trip. In the long run it saves us all time.

I only do mini-routes anymore, but maybe that's a good place for you to start.

Here's what I do, when my route isn't prompted by a phone call with a bonus.

I look on the boards for a shop that's a decent but reasonable distance from me, that is bonused. My last route was built entirely from a gas station shop that only paid $10, but was bonused to $30 and had a $10 reimbursement. That was my anchor. It was 45 miles away. I self-assigned it.

I know this area well enough that I know the towns along the way. I then found a Trendsource shop in the same town that only paid $21, but had a small PAD (travel cash). I took that too. I then found a fast casual shop 6 miles from that one, (A girl's gotta eat!) that had a small bonus plus reimbursement, took that.

Then I found a dessert shop in a mall, tiny bonus, but... I pulled up the mall's directory, refreshed my memory on the stores located in it, and right away, saw about 10 stores that I know are shopped. Logged into their MSC boards, found 4 to take, took those, to bring my mall shop list up to 5.

Right next to the mall is a car dealership. I looked it up on its' MSC's board, found it, and it was bonused! Took it.

My way home, I did 4 more gas stations, three surcharge shops, a bonused bank, a home & garden center, and then met my husband at a restaurant two towns over, for a dinner shop. On my way home, I stopped for ice cream, and picked up another $10 plus reimbursement.

Oh, and I'm not sure where you live, but if you live somewhere with tolls along the route you plan for yourself, work in a shop or two from an MSC that reimburses for tolls.

Marketforce is one. Just make sure to get a receipt and submit it.

BBird0701, wow, that's a really impressive mini-route! It helps a ton to know the steps you take when in the planning stage. Sounds like good advance planning is key. Thank you for the advice!

I don't do them often, maybe once or twice a month... but it is nice when the MS stars align perfectly, LOL. I normally do them towards the end of the month when they're bonused, plus I have a certain monthly goal I set, and if I don't meet it by the last ten days of the month, then that's crunch time and I'll do the mini-routes.

I would have never been able to build that mini-route without signing on with a ton of MSCs. I saw that you posted that you think that would make it more complicated, but actually, it makes it easier. You're able to build denser, closer, more profitable routes. The more MSCs you have, the better your odds are of finding another shop next door to one you're doing anyway.

I've definitely gotten the message that I need to sign up with a bunch more MSC's, and that's on my To Do list. I'll just have to stay well-organized so that checking their job boards doesn't get too unwieldy and time-consuming.

You will learn which are worth checking. Make sure you sign up for email notifications. I rarely check job boards anymore.

Do you have an Android device? Tablet? Smartphone?

I have an Excel spreadsheet that has all of my MSCs on it.

The tabs are organized like this:
Company Name, Company Website (clickable link), Login ID, Password, Payment Method, Payment Date, Assignment Release Schedule, Contacts (direct phone numbers, extensions, and email addresses for the schedulers and editors I've built a relationship with)

I exported that spreadsheet, plus my one of stores and who shops them, and my current shops for the month, to my Google Sheets. You can even create them in Google Sheets, if you don't have Excel. Anyway... I have it saved on all of my devices, plus, since it's tied to my Google account, I can pull it up on any computer, and edit it if needed.

I pull up the spreadsheet, and click the link directly. Took me about two hours to create the MSC spreadsheet, but... being organized saves SOOOOO much time in the long run.

BBird0701, I love using spreadsheets to organize data. I'll definitely build one that includes the columns you've listed. I do have an Android smartphone and have experience with saving documents in Google. It's so convenient to be able to pull up a doc no matter where I am!

I also downloaded a spreadsheet that I found here on the MS Forum that helps with organizing shops. I can see that as I increase the number of shops I perform, it'll be a lifesaver.

Thanks again for all your advice!

BBird, the mini-route that you mentioned above, was that all in one day. For the travel time and the variety of shops (aka not all the same shop or quickie shops), that sure seems like a lot of shops for one day and the time to write reports.

Yep, started at 10 am, finished at 9 pm. Wrote reports until 1 am, if I recall correctly.

I prefer a variety of shops because I do this for fun and college savings these days. Glutting up on a circuit of shops doesn't hold my interest anymore.