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Are the assignments worth the fee?

July 14, 2013 02:35AM
I was just approved as a contractor for Castforce so I took a look at the available assignments in my area (each would be about 10-25 minute drive). The jobs that came up seem like a lot of work for very little pay ($10 and $11, depending on the assignment). For the $11 assignment, the description is:

Ø Audit the main ***** display to ensure it is set to planogram and has the proper reorder tags.
Ø Audit the secondary ****** display to ensure it has the proper reorder tags.
Ø Work with the manager to locate back stock to fill all ****** displays.
Ø Audit action alley for the July features.
Ø Take a picture of all serviced displays.

I took out a few words in case they gave away the client, but you should get the gist anyway. Have you done these? Are they worth it?
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July 14, 2013 03:14AM
I did what reads to me a similar assignment. Personally, I thought it was alot to ask for the pay. I will not be requesting this assigment in the future. Besides, doesn't this outfit now pay with a VISA card rather than PayPal. I like to be paid in $ or check.
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July 14, 2013 04:00AM
I have never done any, but they are picked up really fast in my area. So, someone must like them.

Not my circus - Not my monkeys @(*.*)@

~Polish Proverb~
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July 14, 2013 02:44PM
I did one and will never do it again. Was $19 for what was supposed to be an hour and a half. Took me four hours.
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July 14, 2013 10:00PM
I don't love merchandising, but when a MF Purple scheduler asked me how much it would take said I would need $50 for what was supposed to be a two hour assignment. I figured there was no way they would pay that much, but they jumped at it. It was my first official assignment FH and I could see why they had trouble getting it filled.

It wound up taking nearly seven hours to inventory THOUSANDS of little Texas-themed knick knacks on an overpacked display. Fortunately I did get $8 for each additional hour, but I'd never want to do it again, unless...

I stopped into the same store on July 4 to buy a lighter and the display in question had maybe ten percent of the merchandise it did when I did the inventory! Maybe my count was the first accurate one they had gotten in months. I felt a certain sense of accomplishment. For another $50 I might go back.

So, back to the original question, "Is it worth it?"

For $11.00? Not a chance!

AndrewTX
Certifiable
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July 16, 2013 05:28AM
I do a lot of work for castforce. Most jobs are very easy to do. The ones you are talking about are cvs stores and they take me like 30min to do. They are only worth it if you get multiple stores in a area. I usually do them on the way home from my main merchandising job where I get paid for mileage so I dont waste gas going to those stores.
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July 18, 2013 02:53PM
Most of the jobs I take are merchandising jobs now. I get a regular schedule and don't have to fight the job boards. The type of job you listed is quite normal for merchandising. Although it sounds like a lot of things to do it can be done very quickly once you get used to it. I have never used castforce so I can't vouch for their jobs. The old MF purple portal was not indicative to how a legitimate merchandising company operates. Often you have more than enough time to complete your tasks. Often get paid by the job, not the hour, even though they cite an hourly wage. Once you do a store regularly, you establish a rapport with the staff, they know your product and will often put it on the fixtures for you because they know you will keep that area maintained and make less work for them. The stores can't sell merchandise in the back room so they have an incentive to get the product on the floor and if they know a product line is merchandised, they get it on the floor quickly knowing they will have help keeping it up. I have several product lines in the same store and can group them together for my monthly visits completing them in a few hours. So in my opinion, yes, they are worth the fee. One store even gives me an employee discount when I shop.

~~*~~*~~*~~ kal ~~*~~*~~*~~
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just forget to load the film.


Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2015 12:41AM by kalfini.
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July 19, 2013 05:43PM
kalfini Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The old MF purple portal was not indicative to how
> a legitimate merchandising company operates.

SPAR's portal is so much easier to use than MF's; do not be intimidated by the hour-long training to learn how to use it, it's not that hard. For mystery shopping, MF's portals are okay, but anything else like merchandising, theater assignments, audits, etc seem to be an afterthought.

I would hesitate to imply MF is not legitimate, though. I refer to SPAR and their portal as geared more for "serious" or "dedicated" merchandisers versus MF, when talking to others.

> Often you have more than enough time to complete your
> tasks. You also get paid by the job, not the hour,
> even though they cite an hourly wage.

SPAR still pays some jobs by the hour. Unlike MF, they don't guarantee the first hour's worth of pay minimum if you report that you finish sooner.
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