Valero Route Offers

I've received an offer to perform a route of Valero locations for $11.30 per station. Elsewhere I've read that the Valero stations are relatively simple to perform (as compared to a Shell or Chevron, for instance). I noticed the button to make a counter-offer on the MSC's site. Are these Valero's simple (in general) compared to other gas station audits? Does a counteroffer of $15 seem likely to be accepted? There are few shoppers in the area the MSC is scheduling. I've done a Valero debrand but not a station audit.

Too bad the MSC doesn't just offer me $18 per audit so I wouldn't have to worry about losing time and money on a committment that will take me 8-10 days to complete.

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You need to calculate the distance you will be driving and the time to drive from one to another. I have been offered Valero routes that spanned hundreds of miles and the amount I was offered do not begin to meet the IRS mileage rate of $0.575 per mile. That did not even deal with the issue of time driving and time doing the audit. Some of the routes were very sparsely populated and consisted of a half-dozen shops. Others had several dozen. Be sure to look at the locations, distances, and time required to do the route.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

Thanks myst4u! The route will require approximately 1000 miles of driving round-trip (to 50 locations). At $0.575 per mile x 1000 miles, then $575 for travel. The MSC is not offering a fee that covers the travel expense. Do shoppers work for free doing these routes?

I also have to consider the opprotunity costs associated with this committment. I thought that if these assessments were very simple that 8 could be done in a day. But people must be making a profit doing these routes, right? So they must be countering the MSC by doubling the original offer price, perhaps.

Why would this MSC offer a fee that precisely covers the mileage costs as allowed by the IRS, and not offer the shopper a chance to make a living doing the route? I hope there aren't shoppers that take the first offer from the MSC.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2015 03:23PM by jilummer.

Apparently a lot of shoppers, or at least one, think $11 per shop is fine. Most in my area get taken before I even have a chance to make a counter offer. I suppose the routes do have the advantage of guaranteed work over several days with flexible darts. But I've also noticed the routes get reoffered every quarter, implying the origanal shopper declines to do them again.

Thanks for this information. I counteroffered so that my costs are covered, and my fee I set at $15 per location. I doubt that I will be given the route. Good luck to whoever works for free on this route--you got me beat.

I countered one last time I was offered them and never heard back. Apparently they want me to work for free because the original offer didn't begin to cover the mileage, even if I didn't charge for time. I'll wait and pick them up off the board when they are bonused.

I never see them on my job board. The scheduler told me that is because the route shopper did all of the shops on the route without flaking, so I won't see them bonused in my area beyond 75 miles from home.

Once I had a conversation with a scheduler, and they blurted out "Why not" in a nice way referring to how they counter-offer shoppers with low fees, in the sense of "Why not try to get a better price for our company." I agree, of course. So now I think the shoppers doing these routes for free are new to being self-employed and are not capturing all of their costs in their bid.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/2015 05:06PM by jilummer.

There are still many people, even people on this forum, who insist that their expense is limited to the cost of gas. So if they have a car which gets 25 miles per gallon, that means 40 gallons of gas to drive 1000 miles and at $4 per gallon (easy arithmetic), that means it costs them $160 and the rest is profit. They are IMHO deluded. But in their minds, they are not working for free.

Presumably doing 50 locations represents at least 4 days of travel, so you either need to stay overnight enroute, or make sure that you calculate the round-trip distance each day to the beginning of that day's route and back from the end of that day's route. I am not inclined to do route shops where you stay overnight, because the cost goes way up. But, I have read messages from people who sleep in their cars overnight in Walmart parking lots and consider that to be just fine. I don't. The beauty of being an IC is that we can decide what work to take and what to decline, and how much compensation we require.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

I don't sleep in my car. In fact i don't even sleep in a hotel worse than a true 2.5*

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

@myst4au wrote:

I have read messages from people who sleep in their cars overnight in Walmart parking lots and consider that to be just fine.

Or you could sleep at a Pilot Travel Center and in the morning also pick up one of those $10 shower shops where they want you to assess the showers that the truckers use, to make sure they are clean. Then you could even pick up a Taco Bell or McDonald's. A person could possibly live at truck stops and travel centers while doing the Valero route. It might be a great way to see the country and travel, especially for someone who has just gotten out of school and wants to see the sights on the highways.

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