A shopper asked on the job board:

"How will u know if a shop was accepted or not. Will the msc let u know or will u just be left hung out to dry. I know if u do not get paid thats one signal but will they let u know if they rejected your shop survey."

Unfortunately no one can respond to posts on the job board as that area is for schedulers to post jobs, not to get into long winded discussions. So I have moved the discussion here.

With some companies you will get a notice of your score on a job. That is usually the confirmation that the job is accepted and you are on your way. That is true especially for the SASSIE companies that show scores on their website. With other companies you will not hear a thing and the next thing you know about the job is receiving a paycheck.

Most generally, you will get a notice of a shop rejection if a shop is rejected. Or you will get a note from the editor of things you need to change or clarify before the job can be accepted. These later must be answered quickly, so it is important to read your email daily and check your junk mail in case a note went astray. I have also had editors pick up the phone and call. I had one just this week who wanted more information than was asked for on the questionnaire. I suppose I was not required to give more information than contracted for, but she was pleasant and I was pleased to help her out.

There are some companies you do need to watch for, however. If Second to None rejects a shop, it shows up on their website but they won't contact you. I don't know whether Maritz has tweaked their website to have it show better, but on their website at one point you could see where in processing a shop was and what, if anything, you still needed to do. Trendsource you need to follow up on their website within 24 hrs of submitting a shop to upload a receipt separately or deal with any other issues. Sinclair you need to fax or email receipts and watch for an acknowledging email that it is received (I believe you can also watch it on their website).

So their is no simple answer. But generally if you hear nothing, things are ok.

With Maritz, I get an email telling me to go to their web site or to call them...I really hate the latter when it has no details, since the time difference and my schedule make that quite difficult most days. Maritz is strict on the receipt thing. 14 days, if later, you need to show proof it was submitted, how, and take it over PR's head to the project manager, who can then approve it, or screw you out of the $ (my words.)

STN, yes, you need to log in *at least* once a day after submitting, and check whether it made it through or not.

For the shops I do for them, TS has 48 hours for the receipt; after that, you need to email it to a specific address, and in a specific format, and you will get "dinged" cash for not having it within 48 hours. If a level 2 editor contacts you, even if the answer you provided, say for a pricing audit, comes back exactly the same, you will get dinged cash since a level two editor had to contact you. Sometimes with them, for me, the times for responses will be more time or less time than 24 hours, depending on what the issue was (unclear photo can be longer, wrong price can be as short as few hours.) It could have to do with the fact that I live behind every other time zone in the country, or not. Not sure on that one. Seems to be more what the issue was, to me, over the last 2 years since I finally got the window open to shop for them, since they don't have much here...

Sinclair takes a while to process a late receipt, but they will pay you no matter how long after.

Most others want the receipt via upload with the report. Some will pay you for the occasional lost receipt, some will not. I know this from experience, as unfortunate as that track record has been when I did too many shops in one day and dropped a couple. Some, like TS, will give you a break on that for a good track record for past shops, but only like once a year. MFI will pay but deactivate you after only a couple of missed CPI's, even if you did the receipt. I hear they are totally unforgiving on that. I have no clue about CoRI on these issues, since I have only done 5 shops for them, given that I will not work for what they pay here, except the burger joint, which is fair.

Like Flash said, "no news is good news." IMHO, the exception to that is when you are writing about a lack of payment issue. Then go into "battle mode" when they ignore you. :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2010 06:31AM by dee shops.

I am just starting out and after reading these posts it sounds more complicated than I thought. I signed up for an eyeglass company and am waiting for approval. Am I going to have to memorize a long script? The job pays $15.00. If I have to go back it will cost me more in gas than the job pays. What is the average pay rate? I do not mind doing the work. I just want to get fairly compensated.

What is required of the shop and the fairness of compensation really depends on the company you are doing it for. I have done eyeglass shops where I simply was checking the customer service, the tidiness and fullness of frame displays and noting the name and price of the frames suggested, if I recall correctly (it has been several years ago) for about $15. If it is the sunglasses shop, it is a purchase and return for about $15. If you can hang around the location area for a half hour or so, you can return while you are still in the neighborhood.

Rarely will you memorize a script. In fact, I worry when I even have to memorize a specific question or two because identical questions coming in several times a month, month after month, are only going to get a shopper identified.

You are more likely going to have a task list and many parts of that task list will be the same for shop after shop after shop with only minor variations. So you always will need to note the time you began the shop at the location. Variations: some shops want you to note businesses to the left and right of the location you are visiting. You will always note the time to be greeted. Variations: sometimes it is any greeting, sometimes it is the greeting in the department where the associate is to assist you, sometimes it is the greeting of any employee when you get within 10 feet of them. You will always have something specific you are looking for/asking about. Most of the time you will be checking the tidiness of the store and the restroom. Most of the time you will be getting names and/or descriptions of folks you interact with. If there is a purchase requirement you need to get a receipt, whether it is printed by the register or hand written. Most of the time you need to note the time you left the location. Shopping is 'theme and variations'.

Average pay rate is very variable. Think of shops in terms of their overall value to you. There are shops that pay $3 plus $2 in separate $1 purchases on site. There are shops that pay a whole lot more than that but generally require a fair amount of observation and narrative. My average shop for the current month is paying $21.90 in fee + reimbursement. Last month the average was $18.35 but there were a whole lot of phone shops done in addition to the fair paying jobs. Except for phone shops, I tend to not bother with shops where the fee plus useful reimbursement is less than $15. By 'useful reimbursement' I mean stuff such as gas, groceries, dinners out, etc. that I would buy or be doing anyway. I recognize that rarely do we have reimbursements at the lowest cost vendor of equal quality, so that goes into the accounting as well as an 'eyeball' number. So a $10 grocery reimbursement at the most expensive store in town is worth perhaps $8 (because I could be buying the same brand names for 20% less elsewhere).