Beyond reputation some areas just have more competition which tends to affect the price offered, and further, to site the obvious, these changes are recent, therein lies the whole topic of this thread about an industry valuation that is going down rather than up.

@kennedykr wrote:

Beyond reputation some areas just have more competition which tends to affect the price offered, and further, to site the obvious, these changes are recent, therein lies the whole topic of this thread about an industry valuation that is going down rather than up.

I live and work in a highly competitive area. I get offers before they ever see the light of a job board. I also work for several MSCs with clients who have increased their shop fees without adding extra work to the shop or the report. Yes, some others have reduced their fees. I tend to work for the higher fee shops anyway, no FF shops here.

These are pizza shops I am referring to which I have done for 3 years. I was getting $15 to $35 and now they won't offer more than $14 and I suspect that will fee will drop. There are no "high price" shops here. Perhaps there might be an occassional $30 to $60 and a very rare $125.

@kennedykr wrote:

These are pizza shops I am referring to which I have done for 3 years. I was getting $15 to $35 and now they won't offer more than $14 and I suspect that will fee will drop. There are no "high price" shops here. Perhaps there might be an occassional $30 to $60 and a very rare $125.

Usually (but not always) the pizza shops go down when they have a larger number of shoppers to do them. Imagine you are the MSC and you can't get anybody to take them. So you offer more. You get takers. Once you get takers, the fees seem to lower themselves magically.

I've already gotten an offer from MarketForce for a May shop at a bonus. Alas, the "bonus" is only $3, so no thanks. Call me when you're ready to make it $15 or $20. And if it's a late-dinner shop, make it more!

I appreciate the fact that I've gotten several what appear to be "special" or "exclusive for 12 hours" offers from them, and I actually like working for them. But they gotta make it worth my while! (But maybe they send out hundreds of those "special offers" for the same shop to all the shoppers in the same area; who knows?)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/2016 08:05PM by BirdyC.

@BirdyC wrote:

I've already gotten an offer from MarketForce for a May shop at a bonus. Alas, the "bonus" is only $3, so no thanks. Call me when you're ready to make it $15 or $20. And if it's a late-dinner shop, make it more!

I appreciate the fact that I've gotten several what appear to be "special" or "exclusive for 12 hours" offers from them, and I actually like working for them. But they gotta make it worth my while! (But maybe they send out hundreds of those "special offers" for the same shop to all the shoppers in the same area; who knows?)

There was a certain kind of furniture place that started at $10 and went to $30. It stayed at $30 (too far away for me) and then today it said, "changed fee!" and the price was $27.50.

@SunnyDays2 wrote:

It stayed at $30 (too far away for me) and then today it said, "changed fee!" and the price was $27.50.

Yeah, I've noticed they do that! A $50 shop went to $45, and a $9 went to $8; both had "Changed fee!" next to them. Maybe they think new shoppers will log in and think the fee's gone up! They must know their seasoned shoppers know what the fees were before. Why do they play that game?

OTH, I like that they actually make personal phone calls and the people to whom I've spoken are very polite (even if it's hard to understand some of them). And they don't take a burn when you ask for a bonus or decline a job.

I think the easy sporting good retail shop went from 9.00 fee to 7. I don't really consider accepting them any longer, but I've bought a few dozen soccer socks, basketball socks, ref whistles and pre-wrap over the years. At this point that shop is no longer worth it for me because of low fee and less need.

@RobinMarie wrote:

I think the easy sporting good retail shop went from 9.00 fee to 7. I don't really consider accepting them any longer, but I've bought a few dozen soccer socks, basketball socks, ref whistles and pre-wrap over the years. At this point that shop is no longer worth it for me because of low fee and less need.

The real problem is the reimbursement went from $15 to $9 at the same time.

They treat me really well. I don't understand it to be honest. They call me several times a month and offer me really good money to do simple shops. Of course I take them up on it. But we seem to have several shoppers in the area and the hedgehog shops fly off the board without any help from me. So I don't get it, I'm just happy about it.

This is Marketforce, they don't need "professional" mystery shoppers. The guidelines are minimal and straight forward and the reports are incredibly easy. Most of the businesses shopped by MF have employees who do everything right, making my job so much easier.

Compare this to other MSC who often offer only reimbursement for restaurant/ quick serve. In fact there is one "favorite" scheduler of those on this board who schedules a shop that when bonused, only offers 2 or 3 bucks. Whatever.

I was once called by a "scheduler of the year" to do a bar shop they can NEVER get filled. The only bonus she offered was what was already offered on the website. I felt put on the spot so I accepted it (just got home from work, my mind was elsewhere.) The day I was to do it, the scheduler emailed me (or texted, can't remember) and cancelled it 90 minutes before I was to do it. Imagine if I had done that to her? I am sure many are familiar with these bar shops, the report is redundant and takes a long time to complete. All for the princely sum of 12.00 (15.00 bonused) and reimbursement for two drinks and an appetizer! NO THANKS!

Forgive my digression; my point is MF offers super easy shops that I can self assign. I usually just assign myself their shops at the last minute, on a whim. They will occasionally call with nicely bonused shops (U.S. based schedulers).
I do not know why MF feels the wrath of so many but other MSC, who make you jump through hoops with their requirements and long narratives, get a free pass? If I don't like a shop, I just don't take it...well, at least NOW I don't.;-)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/02/2016 05:51PM by Spork.

@Spork wrote:

This is Marketforce, they don't need "professional" mystery shoppers. The guidelines are minimal and straight forward and the reports are incredibly easy. Most of the businesses shopped by MF have employees who do everything right, making my job so much easier.

Compare this to other MSC who often offer only reimbursement for restaurant/ quick serve. In fact there is one "favorite" scheduler of those on this board who schedules a shop that when bonused, only offers 2 or 3 bucks. Whatever.

I was once called by a "scheduler of the year" to do a bar shop they can NEVER get filled. The only bonus she offered was what was already offered on the website. I felt put on the spot so I accepted it (just got home from work, my mind was elsewhere.) The day I was to do it, the scheduler emailed me (or texted, can't remember) and cancelled it 90 minutes before I was to do it. Imagine if I had done that to her? I am sure many are familiar with these bar shops, the report is redundant and takes a long time to complete. All for the princely sum of 12.00 (15.00 bonused) and reimbursement for two drinks and an appetizer! NO THANKS!

Forgive my digression; my point is MF offers super easy shops that I can self assign. I usually just assign myself their shops at the last minute, on a whim. They will occasionally call with nicely bonused shops (U.S. based schedulers).
I do not know why MF feels the wrath of so many but other MSC, who make you jump through hoops with their requirements and long narratives, get a free pass? If I don't like a shop, I just don't take it...well, at least NOW I don't.;-)

yep

The city where I live, the prices have remained the same. But, the city not to far from me, that I never go to anyway unless there is a bonus, has dropped by fifty cents. I don't get that one. I don't do that many unless they call me with a decent amount and they do call. Did one today that was around the corner and got $10.

We might be talking about two different retailers, it was not 15

@isaiah58 wrote:

@RobinMarie wrote:

I think the easy sporting good retail shop went from 9.00 fee to 7. I don't really consider accepting them any longer, but I've bought a few dozen soccer socks, basketball socks, ref whistles and pre-wrap over the years. At this point that shop is no longer worth it for me because of low fee and less need.

The real problem is the reimbursement went from $15 to $9 at the same time.

MF called me over the weekend to do a shop, and offered, without me asking, a $12 bonus. I probably could've gotten more out of them, but I was out of town and couldn't do the shop no matter what.

Before I signed up with them, I assumed I'd hate them, based on reading posts on this forum. I've found that there are shops they have that I wouldn't even think about taking--at base price or bonused! There's one I'll take at base because it's an easy-peasy report, and I like the food. Then there's the burger shop, which I won't do at base because it's too long of a report, especially if the employees don't do everything they're supposed to. But, when they need one of those done and deadline's approaching, they will give nice bonuses without much negotiation.

They seem to have a wide variety of shops, with a wide variety of work-to-value ratio. If you can cherry-pick their shops, along with waiting until deadline is near, they're OK (at least in my book--FWIW!).

I agree if you pick and choose it can work out well. I'm perfectly content with the phone and accessories they bought me and even tried the recent audits figuring the work to pay ratio would be great after the first one. I also go months and even years without taking a single assignment. Based on their history and business model, I don't anticipate doing any more of the audits after this first round. Their M.O. is to pay decent to high for a brand new project. No doubt the idea is to get locations filled and data back to the client as quickly as possible. They will also use the data, especially auditors time on site, to drop fees. No way will MF tolerate independent contractors making anywhere near $26 an hour. My guess is they will be priced at $10 or less going forward.

@isaiah58 wrote:

Correct me if I am wrong please. The tax advice above is incorrect. We claim the cost of the meal/purchase as our expense. We include all reimbursements and fees as income.

In theory, we actually lose income when the reimbursement is increased (and the fee reduced) if we do not meet the reimbursement. I'd rather have a $15 fee to work with than a $11 reimbursement and a $4 fee. I might find a way to spend $7 resulting in $8 income; versus just an $11 check under the reimbursement plus fee scenario.

That depends on how much you are spending. For example:

Under the old rate someone who was going to spend $5.80 would be taxed on the fee of $5 and get an untaxed $5.80 reimbursement. Someone who was going to spend $7.80 however was getting taxed on $5.00 and got a reimbursement of $5.80 plus $2.00 out of pocket.

Under the new structure the second person now gets taxed on only $4.50 but gets $2.00 more of tax free income in the form of reimbursement of something they were going to spend anyway.

My personal opinion is that if you are unhappy with the fee on a shop your time would be better spent finding shops whose fee you are happy about and less time @#$%&.

But if shoppers didn't @#$%& about fees, what would we have to read?

My witty retorts?

The last round of telephone audits actually paid a decent rate of $26. I think that Lisa is right and the fee will drop if they keep doing those audits. I was in the store a little less than an hour for my 2 audits. They would only let you assign 2 in my neck of the woods. Too bad since once you get rolling they can be done pretty quick and efficiently and I actually enjoyed the shops since the managers were all great. I have been backing off MF for a few months now and choosing my shops a little more carefully. I think they are the only MSC that has made me cry while trying to upload my pictures.