I am pleased to say I got 10 permanent HD MET audits. I'm guaranteed $2000+ in income over the next 3 months assuming they pay minimum wage or more. If they try to give me less than minimum wage I will walk of course. But I was making minimum wage and not getting paid for required printing with MFP. So this is a step in the right direction.

jwhitg

I figured out most of the reporting but some of the questions don't jive. For starters managers don't give last names and so far none of my scrapped balloons are in the list.
They didn't even tell us if we still need to upload photos. I have decided not to use their reporting form I printed and will still use the MFI form as it's more productive to take notes on.
So for now I am still uploading photos and using the comments to list scrap.

Getting back to pay, yes the good old days of MFI calling and begging are gone. You can't play let's make a deal with SPAR.
Damn and I just did a few MET audits with MFI for the bump and cashed in on the $84 for 5 hours work.
SPAR METs audit for 5 hours = less than $45
I'm feeling it already, last month I was already at $103 with MFI by the 6th now with SPAR a big fat $24.

I did get an email about the orientation details happening last week that I did'nt get time for. I have emailed my DM many weeks ago saying what hours she could call me -

Guess I will check my board and see if they assigned me any assignments.

I'm sure I stated it before in previous comments about SPAR - MF gave them all the info including what we would take per hour.

DM is supposed to call us so we can tell them what assignments we would like to do, etc. and discuss pay rate per hour. Not going to restate again - just read what I had posted before what I was told during the 1st & 2nd time I did make it to Orientation. I wanted to do this last one to see what was being told.

okay off to check my board, LOL

Well- I checked - no assignments - but that's okay - didn't have permanent ones. Still waiting on DM to call.

I can still do orientation- and they are scheduled now at different times on several days.

Anyway the THEIR contract with me is up in like July 2014. and they do have a Smartphone app to report with. and they do have training stuff on their website for you to look over - under Knowledge/Forms - called eKnowledge.-

FYI: Just completed a home improvement store audit for them and I didn't think I would be saying this but it was easier and quicker to report with SPARS system than MFI's.

IMHO..

On my Spar Dashboard, I can't seem to find the Merchandiser Tools link to find available assignments.
Do I have to do the orientation call first? I already have a Spar ID#, and the nametag. Just no jobs!

Help!

Okay, I've been struggling through with Spar and things are starting to look better for the future. I sat through 4 orientation webinars as the reps pointed out the do's and don'ts and offered some tips. Some of the webinar reps were more giving than others, but I got needed information from all. The webinars are definitely worth it and they have a Q & A period and answer a lot of questions outside the realm of the webinar. Unfortunately, they don't have all the answers, especially those directly related to work. I tried emailing my DM several times and calling one time when I spoke to her DS who wasn't all that helpful. I didn't get much response from the DM, and finally, in frustration, I wrote an email pleading with her to help me keep my permanent assignments, professed that I would be an excellent merchandiser, and that I truly wanted to work, was wiling to work hard, and wanted to keep all of my permanent balloon assignments. She called as soon as she got that email and we had a good talk and ironed out a few things. I sent her a list of my permanent stores, and I now have all of them, plus one more that the person who was doing quit so she gave it to me. I don't know where the $8.50 comes from, and I didn't ask or negotiate pay at all. I am receiving $10 for each balloon assignment (of which I have 12). That price is not negotiable...I lost money on a few stores, but gained on others. From what I was told, that is what balloon assignments are paid. I have also recently received other work for other audits outside of my balloon assignments, mostly because I continue to stress my need for work and a solid income...I have not seen any pay for less than $9.25. I am doing an extra assignment in three Walmarts I now do balloons in and will be paid $9.25 for each one. I did these for MFI and was paid $6, so that's a nice increase for an easy job. They also pay .07 for printing. The printing for balloon assignments is excessive and I only print what I need to do each job. I made up my own inventory list for scrapped balloons because the one they have for printing is 6 pages long (mine is 2 pages). I think the paperwork printing fee is for printing one set of instructions for one store. If you have more in that same assignment, only print the necessary report/inventory pages as you will not be paid to print general information for each related assignment. I have also been given other work in my permanent balloon assignment stores, so things are starting to look good....I can only suggest that you keep in touch by phone or email with your DM, let them know you are really interested in working, do the orientation calls, and ask questions if you have them, and get reports in on time, with pictures if necessary. It has been a major transition for Spar, and I think the DM's have been a bit overwhelmed. I personally am feeling much better about the future than when I posted my original dismal writing on 4/26.

Has anyone looked in the vendor logbook at the SPAR sign in sheet?
In one of my stores they came in almost every day.

I checked my board and they dropped a price audit on me. I'm going to try to cluster my jobs same day to reduce trips so how is this going to look when I sign in as Anagram then Spar then after that I'm Mr. Joe anonymous shopper doing a 100 item secret price audit.

Speaking of which, I'm a guy so what recommendations does anybody have when the items are of a feminine nature? I don't know about you but it weird's me out spending too much time in those aisles.

Easy Most men are so confused and overwhelmed by "feminine products" that they either run in and out of that section quickly or stand there looking confused. Take on the pitiful confused look and you should be fine!

We women will usually leave you alone in those aisles unless you are looking around for help, it is similar to a deer in headlights.

cruiseguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> After reading the contract, I opted to not go with
> SPAR.
>
> Reasons: SS# ( I have an EIN).
> Photo
> Insurance requirement.


I signed up with my EIN Number and i will find a cheaper rate. They charge 2.9.

After a long talk with my DM apparently they only auto assign jobs based on geographical location and I also hate to say that I actually have more permanent jobs with SPAR then I ever had a chance of getting with MF. Its nice to know that I can count on having jobs every week, but on the contrary a couple assignments are really crappy, and the 2.9 insurance is also dumb, anyone know how they are getting away with that? Also the sony merch is so much easier using the SPAR system then old MF.

I too had Permanent shops with MF that I had been working for over two years and because I took it permanent mf give
me a better wage. The first week that Spar had the shop that give it to someone else with a lower pay. Than they told me I could have it for the minimum wage for Idaho and I refused because that wasn't what I was making. With gas expensive and taken time to turn in reports it is not worth it. So I lost my two permanent jobs from MF that I just loved the
stores liked me also.

I have retained my permanent assignments so far and was told by the DMM that an "access" fee would be added to my rate to bring it up "very close" to what MFI was paying. I just looked at the payment scheduled for 5/24 and was paid less than half what I had been making for 3 permanent balloon assignments. And that includes payment for printing. The reason I was making the bonused rate with MFI is because these jobs were never filled.

Well, I'm about done with SPAR. The paperwork clearly states that everything has to be in by 12 am. There is no time zone given. They are on the east coast, so guess what, I have to have everything done by 9pm. They just shut me out of one of my assignments that I did today, so that I can't report it. I'm tired of having to ask the DM to help me out, because once they fix the problem I'm not even informed. I have wasted so much time to not be getting paid for work performed.

Haven't been on in a while. I got my first assignments from SPAR. They gave me five DVD displays, which I had done before for MF, and I also took a covert ice cream audit. Overall I am starting to like SPAR more than I liked doing merchandising from MF but there are definitely both pluses and minuses.

On one hand, I am pretty sure I have this assignment for as long as I want it assuming I didn't screw it up. This is a plus. I also think SPAR tends to offer better quality assignments on the whole, and the people that work for SPAR actually care more than those working the purple portal at MF. (When it was still CFA, and maybe for a short time after the MF buyout, there was some degree of caring there, but it didn't take that long for that to go away. I honestly miss Shop N Chek and CFA from the days when I was just getting started doing mystery shopping; is there anyone on this board that doesn't?)

On the other hand, SPAR's website is way different than MF's. This at first is a minus, but then I realized that SPAR's setup is for serious merchandising/audit work and not just a hacked-up mystery shop software where the company said one day "oh yeah, we want to be able to schedule merchandising, too." Now that I know how to use it, I like SPAR's website much more, though it is not perfect.

There's also the fact you're at the mercy of what your DMM wants to assign you to, and there's no such beast as self-assign jobs on SPAR. Self-assign on what was then CFA was how I was able to break out of the catch-22 of not being able to land merchandising jobs because I had no experience. It isn't a big deal to me now, but for a merchandiser just starting out this could easily be a big minus.

I am wondering how SPAR is doing with the merchandising jobs. I did not sign with them.