I do a number of shops for the Blue Portal and never have had any issues. BUT!!! I signed up for the Purple Portal. OK. Took a permanent shop, filling balloons at Walmart. Pay sucks, but it's very close to my home and I'm there about once a week anyway. It went well. I signed up for 3 Dollar stores, again near my home, restocking movies. I was told, by the manager, at the store, no one had been there in months and it was a mess. And it was. I spent 3 1/2 hours resetting the display, came home and sent an e-mail, requesting to speak with someone, first, before doing the other 2 restocks. I sent request after request and even called them. Suddenly, they deactivated my account. I was due to do another shop at Walmart, the next day. I couldn't access my account to get the paperwork to do it. Ahh, now they call me. after the report for Walmart is a week overdue. They begged me to continue the Walmart shops and the Dollar stores. I told them, they could keep me deactivated. If they treat their shoppers like they did me, I don't care to work with them. I have plenty of other companies to work with.

Good for you. They generally are suckie anyway.

I second that.

Good for you. And its about time they start getting the message about treating shoppers with respect.

Similar company - has no name of a scheduler to contact.
Like emailing into a black hole.

I emailed and said I wanted the name of the scheduler in charge of the shop.
Got an email back naming a "group", not a person.

I don't like doing business with "anonymous".

After my experience with a permanent assignment and all the trouble just getting out of it, I vowed never to agree to another one. You see, they can make all kinds of changes to it, even cancel it but you cannot request an adjustment as some of the staff are trigger happy and do not even bother to read or understand your complete message.

Purple Portal or Market Force do pay like clock work (twice a month) which is exceptional compared to majority. As for the pay rate, that's another thing.

I just signed up for the purple portal, but all the jobs I see sound like a lot of work for a little pay. I guess I was under the assumption they did secret shops too, but it looks like mostly displays and such. Blech! That isn't really my cup of tea.

Market Force (blue) does pay like clockwork, but it's once per month, not twice. I don't work much for the purple portal so I can't speak to their pay schedule.

Purple Portal definitely pays twice a month like clockwork. I had forgotten if they were the same as the last time I had a pay from Blue fell at the same time I had one from Purple.

Are the purple portal assignments worth it? I see one in my area that says estimated time 30 minutes and pay $6. Does it really only take the time it says, or should I expect it to take much longer? I have never done one of these assignments... I just signed up a couple days ago.

They called me last night wanting me to take an assignment 40 minutes away and another assignment almost 2 hours from that one in the other direction. They wanted me to go within the next couple days. I told them "no". The extra compensation they were offering wouldn't even pay for my gas. I can only see myself picking any of these assignments up on a route, or on my way home from work.

The purple portal has several different project types that you can choose from-- there are audits, blind theatre checks, lobby checks, merchandising, mystery shopping, open checking, price auditing, trailer checks (movie), theatre evaluations and theatre installs.

I was invited to join Purple Portal before blue and, honestly, it really depends on what you're looking for as far as shopping where the Purple is concerned. I have, on occasion, really enjoyed doing theatre trailer checks, but those can be tricky. There was an occasion where I went and did a check for an agreed upon price and once I came back, input the survey, found out that they'd changed the fee while I was in the theatre. I had the original paperwork, had to find someone to correct the situation and met with hostility until I was able to "prove" they were wrong. I've actually seen this happen (on this board) to other people, as well. I wouldn't say that's always the case, but it can certainly be dissuading.

The other thing is that a theatre trailer check might involve shopping on a Friday, the opening day for the movie and involve every theatre that's showing the film. The above shop I mentioned was for The Hunger Games. I was supposed to be paid $10 for the first screen and then $3 for each additional. That day, there were five theatres showing the film. My job was to go into each theatre, write down the name of the movies in the previews, make comment on the audience reactions to those trailers, and keep track of things like how many people were in the theatre, what the picture and sound quality were like, etc. By the time I'd gotten home, they'd changed the trip to $7 for the first screen and $2 the rest. While it wasn't a _huge_ difference, it was the principle of the thing. =)

Anyway, I hope that helps. You can definitely weed out the types of projects you don't want-- or, more specifically-- choose the kind of shops you'd like to review. I can say that I've done one shop on the Purple Portal that I absolutely adored and should it ever become available again, I'd be there in a heartbeat. Theatre evaluations pay fairly, provide tickets for you and a friend, and also give you an allowance for the concession. It was a great "date night" shop, but I've only ever seen one in my area.

Sending the best,

Jen

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/09/2012 04:17PM by jentodd.

Jen-

Thanks for sharing your experience about the purple portal. I guess I will have to try a couple that sound reasonable and see what happens. I haven't seen any of the theatre checks yet. I am unsure about some of the display setups that I can choose from. I broke my thumb in May and anything that requires a lot of thumb manipulation or lifting isn't right for me. So I'll be avoiding the displays, anyway, until my thumb doesn't swell anymore.

Absolutely! And I totally sympathize. I'm not the most graceful person on the planet, also, when it comes to heavy lifting, I always make my husband do the work! HEHE. So, those kinds of jobs are definitely out for me, too.

Hope you find something you have fun with! That's what it's all about! =DD

If you work for the purple portel and they call you negotiate your fees and make sure you negotiate your fee for the job and understand exactly what you are going to be paid for all shops-especially the theater checking shops whic require you to be at the theater all day. I did not clarify a theater shop and I thought I was going to be paid 125/day for 10 hours each day and it turned out to be 45/day. I gave up other work because I thought I would make the same working one shop. I was told I should have read the paperwork more carefully. Trust me I will read the paperwork more clearly and negotiate for what my time is worth. Having said that-I work for both portals and they do pay on time.

I don't work for the Purple Portal anymore. Their pay doesn't usually even cover my gas, so I didn't take many. They auto assigned me some shops without contacting me first, and I told them I couldn't do them. Then when I had to cancel a shop because of some surgery, they cancelled my account. I contacted and asked why and they said my high cancellation rate. I don't consider cancelling something that was assigned to me without my authorization should be counted against me, but I am not too worried about it.

They pay timely.

Skip the battery ones. They are too much work, not enough time allotted and capped when it doesn't say capped at. Also these involve finding the shipment at locations that are not organized with putting there shipments in specific places. Store managers are hot about the issues of how the jobs are being handled.

I am beginning to feel like I am in a hostage situation with them. A week ago Tuesday, I agreed to do some merchandising that was supposed to be finished in July and the materials were to be sent to me house. Thursday they ask me to pick up a few more locations, which I foolishly agree to do. I didn't realize until I got further into the paperwork that I could only complete between 1-5 or 7-9 pm with no weekends, so it will probably mean 3 days because of the driving distance.

I was able to negotiate some bonuses because of the urgency. I am told I should have the first shipment by Monday 8/6.

As of today, nothing has arrived at my house. I kept Tuesday and Wednesday open so I could work on some of these locations. I called the purple people who said that the other company is actually responsible for completing the shipment and they have no way of checking the tracking or to confirm if any of it has even been shipped yet. However, I am supposed to get it all installed within 2 business days of arrival.

Next week, between some curriculum days for my teaching job and routes I have already planned, I only have Friday, so if it comes early next week I definitely won't get it done within 2 days.

When I mentioned possibly not doing it, the person on the phone was concerned because each location is shipped separately, so there is a lot of cost in shipping and materials if it had already left the facility.