When you first started mystery shopping, you may have viewed mystery shopping providers as your ally. Mystery shopping providers are your only source for finding mystery shopping assignments to work on. They act as a conduit between clients and mystery shoppers like you, so working with them is a “must.” However, as time has passed and you have worked more with some of your providers, the thought may have crossed your mind that some of your providers are actually costing you money.
The Required Purchase
A critical aspect of most mystery shopping assignments is the purchase that you are required to make. A purchase is necessary with many assignments so that you can make observations about the complete buying experience in your report. However, some mystery shopping providers offer such a small expense reimbursement that you may lose money overall on an assignment. For example, with a $5 expense reimbursement in a grocery store, you can buy any number of items that are priced close to this amount. With a $5 expense reimbursement in a fine leather goods shop, however, you may be hard-pressed to find many items priced below $50. In order to complete the assignment, you may have to buy an item that you will only partially be reimbursed for!
The Time Commitment
As a mystery shopper, you no doubt have learned first-hand that time is money. The ability to complete more assignments in less time will affect how profitable you are on a daily basis. However, some mystery shopping providers have such cumbersome mystery shopping requirements that you may spend more time working on those assignments than you are reasonably being compensated for. You can keep track of the time you spend on the assignments for different providers and notice if you spot on a trend with certain providers.
Wasting Your Time
Of course, wasting time with cumbersome mystery shopping assignment requirements is only one way that mystery shopping providers may be wasting your time and ultimately may be costing you money. You may have noticed that some mystery shopping providers are more nit-picky when it comes to your mystery shopping reports. You may have learned to cater to their unique whims when it comes to writing the reports. With some providers, however, it may seem like revisions to reports will be requested despite your best efforts. Going back and forth with mystery shopping providers on a regular basis can drain your time and prevent you from earning more money.
The fact is that your experience with one provider may be far different than your experience with another provider is. With a closer look at your experiences with your various providers, you may find that some providers really are wasting your time and costing you money. Once you have made this observation, you can simply drop those providers and find a few others to work with. This simple effort may help you to make more as a mystery shopper without working longer hours or working on more assignments!
I certainly know what your talking about. I have done many different shops and have come to learn that the *onsite* isn’t so bad. When you get home and submit your on-line report, however, can take over two hours! I am still learning , but the on-line explanations of the same experience, over and over again can be very draining and aggravating.
Tricia
Yes, The online reporting can take hours and some companies expect so much for so little moneyand their restrictions on how many places to go incumbers you.I have done a lot with athpower and they are good to work for but after a year and a half I need new questions. I have written about the thing over 100 times and just can’t face it anymore
Realmente el articulo toca asuntos medulares en el trsabajo de los compradores, pero solo agregare que el trabajo de buscar las asignaciones, aplicaciones y rendir la informacion en linea ser convierte, muchas veces en mucho tiempo que no se paga y en un trabajo agotador, pienso que el tema no esta agotado con ese articulo se debe escibir mas al respecto.
Try looking for something that costs less then 75 cents
Don’t forget the printing costs! I used to do gas stations for $10.00 with the required printing of 40+ pages with updated instructions every few months. No more!
I finally decided to, sort of cheat, when it comes to some companies. Such as working with specific mystery shopping providers. There is so much cost for paper and ink. I stopped printing all the evaluation forms for each job and I just do a “Print Preview” to see the security code so that I can submit my reports. When I first started with the company, I printed everything. When you have 16 bank shops and each shop requires a 4-page evaluation form, you do the math. That is a big drain in ink and paper. I am going to take my chances on no-one requiring the hardcopy for any reason. If I am required to provide it and don’t have it, I guess I will have to be deactivated.
Now on to the gas/station reveal audits. 6 shops at a time before getting 6 more shops. Each shop form and the letter that the manager has to sign, runs into a lot of cost. Now fill up the gas tank and try to make the whole route without refilling. There is a lot of money involved. Thank God for the $30 per hour dumpster dives with travel pay and mileage. Those are the types of shops that make it worth while. Or, the ones where the schedulers are scrabbling to get shops done at the end of the month. That is when the $15 per first hour shop goes to $50. I am debating whether I want to take it. Mmmmmm!
I figured this out a long time ago. Because I don’t have a car, the gas thing is not an issue only I can’t do parking shops because of that. Manhattan shopping is great because you don’t have to deal with traffic or parking. I’m back in L.A. and I try to do shops closer to home or in a location or mall I want 2 visit.