I will admit that there are at least 2 companies that I have said I will stop shopping for because of the editors.
1. The first one wrote back asking me to answer questions that weren't on the form or instructions. Well I got a call from them asking me to complete again. No thank you.
2. The other company has a long list of to dos and the kids enjoy but they are just too picky. I saud I would do them either. I got an email from them just now.

I want to respond and tell them the reason I won't take the shops but I'm think that will do more harm than good.

I would advise to not say anything. Even something said in the most diplomatic of terms could be misconstrued. After all, you never know who's going to talk to who, or someone might go to a company you really like and those jobs dry up because of what you said.

I'm not even sure I would say anything if the MSC asked why you weren't taking the shops anymore.

Sorry for the problem. If I wanted to stop doing the shops, I would stop without announcement or comment. If they ever ask, I'd be too busy elsewhere but would keep them in mind, with a thank you for the call. You would always be in good graces in case you wanted to go back to that company, or you encountered some of their employees elsewhere in the future.

Editors, schedulers and job requirements are all subject to change.
Why burn bridges?

It's always business and never personal. Remember that. The minute you forget that, you set yourself up for failure. Don't want to do a shop? Just say you are unavailable. Don't say it's because I hate you. You never know where they will end up. The only schedulers you can say I hate you to are cori, because they never leave, ever.

For me, at this point in my "career," pretty much any job is fair game if it pays enough, so I would just put a price that would be lucrative enough to be worth enduring whatever needed to be endured. For example, while I don't think I would ever want to do an Ikea -- for $300 I would try it once. So if anyone tried to get me to do an Ikea, I would say to them, "based on the amount of work involved I would need at least $300 to do that shop (plus gas money depending on where it was)."

It's our time and we need to value it based on our needs.

If you have OTHER reasons for not wanting to do the shop, make up a story -- "I know someone who works there," "A friend owns that store," "It's in a neighborhood I'm not comfortable working in," "I ate there once and got sick so I won't go back there for any amount of money now."

Or, "Based on the feedback I've gotten from the editors, I don't think I do that shop well enough to meet the client's needs. You probably should get someone who can do it better than I do...."

Schedulers usually have a pretty good idea of why a certain assignment is hard to fill. Having it explained to them doesn't benefit the shopper's relationship to that scheduler. The scheduler doesn't have any control over the parameters of the assignment.

However, I have had a scheduler or two or three occasionally directly ask me what my opinion was as to why they had continual difficulty filling a specific assignment in my local area. In that case, I'm upfront about it. But I do try to avoid discussions regarding pay and editorial styles, and concentrate on actual assignment guideliness or other factors such as travel and/or reporting times.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2013 05:52PM by shopgal.

I definately would not inform them why you are not shopping for them. Like the others said, things change and that company might pick up a lucrative client with an easy report that pays well. I also would just say that I'm booked up if they call you right now.

Yea those are all my first thoughts. But I still can't believe the nerve. For another company whose editors are very picky as well...they had a hard time filling those 20 million fast food shops. I got a personal email with a nice bonus. I took 2 Nd got high scores. I wonder if it was the editor or the fact that I took the hard to fill shops.

I completely agree with Secret's first paragraph and the one line second entry, but I never make an excuse out of respect for myself. Folks, this is about MONEY and if it is piled sufficiently high, as in Ikea, I will accept the work. In my opinion, any scheduler who feels resentment due to my request for additional cash is too non-business oriented to matter.

In the past, I have been cautioned to temper my comments least a scheduler decide not to offer me work, but my position then, as now, is that I am only interested in an association with business minded MSCs and my experience with these companies is quite positive. Never any begging, fun & easy shops or attempts to "hood wink" anyone.

This is an interesting thread. I have "suggested" certain things to schedulers regarding upping pay etc on some jobs and have never felt any bad karma from it. I do not demand but just ask them to consider. I often do it when the prices have risen at the store and the reimbursement remains the same. Just the other day I discovered that the haircut I do that reimburses a flat $20 for what used to be an $18 cut so it covered the cut and a small tip now is a $25 cut. Fortunately for me I recently had my hair cut a bit shorter than usual so it is now above the shoulder. They have a scale from $20-25 depending if it hits the shoulder the bra strap, the earlobe etc. so I have cheaper hair to cut this month. Pretty hard to decide which it is with my curly hair. I called three of their stores for prices. I sent this information on to the scheduler and got a thank you. She did not think the fee would go up. However, the scheduler is not in my city. The haircut price might have gone up on the west coast but not elsewhere. The main office of the company is probably not local and the stores are franchises so they can set their own prices. They always seem happy to have information on local prices going up and I have never lost a job by letting them know of rising prices on specific things we are supposed to purchase.
And I get a fairly regular call to do a certain restaurant where the fee does not come close to covering. Every time I tell them I think the fee needs to be higher to attract more shoppers. They say it is not hard to fill and then they call me again the following week! I only accept it when bonused and have told them that but they still continue to call.

I do sometimes write back to the scheduler to say one of a long list of things that may include:
1. The reason you are having a problem filling that assignment may be that the MSC that had it for the last 3 years paid twice the fee that you are offering, so the "regulars" for that shop are not much interested. If you want experienced shoppers for it, you may need to reconsider the fee. (I have actually then been offered the higher fee to do several of those shops.)

2. You are offering $18 for the same new car purchase shop scenario that I do for $50. If you can bring it up to that, I can do it any day after Wednesday. (I am actually doing such a shop, for $50, later this week, but new shops are still being offered at $18.)

3. I would like to be able to help you with that. Because of the time and distance required in this area, the most congested metro area in the contry, I would need $30 in travel bonus in order to support you. (This actually works a few times per year. And, it is true, since it takes so much time to go short distances by car here.)

Of course, it would be tempting to reply something like, "Are you nuts? It would take me 45 minutes each way to get there!" But I find that a mild mannered reply that offers help in solving the scheduler's dilemma may pay off for both of us. And I have not had any negative blowback from schedulers when I have done this.

I started to get excited about a $55 furniture shop in a town I will be in tomorrow with time to spare.

Then I saw it was Ikea.

I'll bring a book to read.....

itsasecret Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I started to get excited about a $55 furniture
> shop in a town I will be in tomorrow with time to
> spare.
>
> Then I saw it was Ikea.
>
> I'll bring a book to read.....


That's when you add another 5 to the number.

I like your thinking Wales but I failed the tact class. LOL.

I got another email days ago from a scheduler who does apts. The first and last apartment I did was sent back to me with all kinds of demands. I said never again. SO I got an email earlier this week saying shops were available. I did not bite. Today there is a begging email that is addressing, I guess everyone in my area. They won't bite either. I'm grateful that I have a community who has the same values.

I love the e-mail which may have been from the same company this morning. It said you could get $50 for referring five friends. Let me see now, refer people and save us the bonus money since the jobs are still sitting on the boards. Here is the best part, that $50 is not a referral bonus, it is an entry into a drawing where you MIGHT win the money. My odds are better to wait for them to add $20 or so to the remaining jobs.

True, but very seldom do they get bonuses where I am. Shoppers are greedy for the apartments where I live so thats how I know that the other company is having a hard time filling them.

The first email was actually from another company.

prettygul1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I will admit that there are at least 2 companies
> that I have said I will stop shopping for because
> of the editors.
> 1. The first one wrote back asking me to answer
> questions that weren't on the form or
> instructions. Well I got a call from them asking
> me to complete again. No thank you.
> 2. The other company has a long list of to dos and
> the kids enjoy but they are just too picky. I
> saud I would do them either. I got an email from
> them just now.
>
> I want to respond and tell them the reason I won't
> take the shops but I'm think that will do more
> harm than good.


You could always ask for them to take you off of their emailing list, or even to "temporarily deactivate" your account.

prettygul1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I will admit that there are at least 2 companies
> that I have said I will stop shopping for because
> of the editors.
> 1. The first one wrote back asking me to answer
> questions that weren't on the form or
> instructions. Well I got a call from them asking
> me to complete again. No thank you.
> 2. The other company has a long list of to dos and
> the kids enjoy but they are just too picky. I
> saud I would do them either. I got an email from
> them just now.
>
> I want to respond and tell them the reason I won't
> take the shops but I'm think that will do more
> harm than good.

I once had a editor who every time I did this one assignment they would send email that asked questions that were not on the report form, constantly knit-picked, and well never found anything right. At this MSC, I score high and like the company. So all I did was not take that particular assignment. Two months later a scheduler who I had completed shops for asked why I had not applied for this particular job for her and since she couldn't get anyone to fill it would I do it. That was when I was able to tell her why and that it was a waste of my time when all my other jobs were okay by editors. It did not injure my relationship and I still do assignments. (I did do that assignment for her and the editor must have been different because I didn't get the regular emails) I do not have the answer on how to handle it, this is just what I did. Good luck.

one scheduler went back and changed my score after I complained.

Wow! That's horrible. I am so sorry that happened to you!

audrialyn30 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> one scheduler went back and changed my score after
> I complained.

pippama77 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wow! That's horrible. I am so sorry that happened
> to you!
>
> audrialyn30 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > one scheduler went back and changed my score
> after
> > I complained.


Sorry, I should have clarified. That was good. It was an 8 but it became a 10 after she changed. The editor said I missed a comma, and that I did not write the shop number on the card, which I did. I dont shop for that company much because their editors fell off the turnip truck.

I see the cash advance begging and begging. I would do it instantly if they had a kinder editor. I pass by the store. I have the checking account etc but since the editor seems to think my vision of what I see in the shop cannot ever happen we do not see eye to eye. Such as the question is the location safe. Hmm...... the guy with a gun standing at the door (not security) does not make a safe location to me.

I think they may be looking for positive reports only for that shop. I don't do it any more because once you've shopped, the check cashing place marks it in your file. They tend to do everything right, but it can be awkward.

One time when the teller(cashier?) pulled up my file, her eyes got really big and she excused herself and went to talk to the manager. She then came back and asked me to step to the side and wait. A few minutes later the manager came to the window and helped me. Meanwhile, there was a lot of rushing about and whispering.

Bay Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One time when the teller(cashier?) pulled up my
> file, her eyes got really big and she excused
> herself and went to talk to the manager. She then
> came back and asked me to step to the side and
> wait. A few minutes later the manager came to the
> window and helped me. Meanwhile, there was a lot
> of rushing about and whispering.

Hope you put all that in your report. This was very unprofessional. Had I been a real customer, I would have left.

I put some in, but not all of it. I actually think that the fact that the company lwts this information be known and in our files is more unprofessional than the employees' nervous reaction.

I've had two phone calls to do shops today. One offered me $30 to drive 180 miles round trip (about a 4 1/2 hour drive) after I said it would take near a hundred. They tried to sweeten it by offering me some gas station shops in a town I won't go for for less than $50 due to the slow winding mountain road to get to it. I passed on the whole thing. I really didn't have time to go out of town tomorrow.

I took a shop I had been watching for awhile, and they gave me the extra $5 I felt it was worth (it's local).

I implore anyone and everyone who needs an oil change to come here. I have lost track of the number of MSCs offering them and the e-mails feel like they are running into the hundreds.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/14/2013 04:18PM by CAscotch.