I'm considering getting into merchandising. Out of curiosity, how much do you think you average an hour merchandising? I'm a little hesitant to get into it because the pay seems kind of low (Under $12 an hour).

Thanks!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/16/2017 05:56AM by Jbrz123.

It varies greatly, but none of them pay what you would call "high" wages.

I am actually signed on with 10 companies and they range from $10 - $ 15 an hour. None of them offer anything close to a full time schedule - therefore the large number.
Unfortunately Nov - Dec they ALL get busy and pile on the assignment and that can get hectic. Most of the time though I only get about 20 - 25 hrs worth of work a week with all 9 of my active ones.

The true gauge of your earnings though is dependent on the type of work required.

I stopped taking assignments from the $10 company once I had enough work with the $12 and up ones. It was just common sense. I was doing harder physical work (occasional resets) for the lowest paying company and the higher paying ones offered less back-breaking assignments.

Sometimes the work averages out to $20 an hour or more if the assignment has a set 1 hour pay (never do work that sends you out to a store for less than 1 hour - not worth it) and you work fast and efficiently and the work can be done in half the time.

I also will no longer do "project" work where it is a set dollar amount per "job" rather than per hour because if you run overtime (or the job is stupid complicated and the fixture is a mess) you will be working for a few bucks an hour and no recourse (the case these days with most of these "app" jobs).

So - my advice is sign up with a number of them - only take work in your immediate area (if possible) and then whittle back to the companies that offer the best assignments for the best compensation or stop once you have enough of a workload (and remember it often varies greatly from week to week.

Your best bet is to read the posts here.

There are lots of factors to consider. What are you merchandising? Travel distance, cost of living in your area, available workers.

I am paid per store on weekends. After breaking it down... Saturday I make $10 an hour, Sunday $20 an hour.
I spend a lot of time on Saturday preparing for Sunday.

If you don't need flexibility, I think it comes out the same as working anywhere in retail. Until my kids are gone, I need the flexibility of merchandising, but at some point I will probably go back to working at a store. It would be nice to have some benefits - paid time off, discount, etc.

I made $6.50 an hour this weekend doing flat rate projects for SPAR.

Sometimes the pay is relative. I worked a few weekends demoing Fitbits before Christmas. I made $12 an hour but they gave me 4 fitbits. Everybody got a new boxed Fitbit for Christmas

I made 15-$18/ hr two years ago. Last year it was $15. I stopped doing merchandising because it appears there is minimal value in it and I'm working on starting my own demo agency.

The last time I merchandised movies in grocery stores they paid me $10 per hour and a maximum of 2 hours with nothing for travel or the extra time it actually took on site when store employees had hidden my merchandise for a joke. They put the boxes of movies up high on some steel shelving units that you needed a forklift to retrieve. They did not expect to see me buzzing along on one of their forklifts to do just that.

In the past, I occasionally combined merchandising projects with other jobs along a route. This is not a guaranteed way to increase your hourly equivalent revenue. It is just one thing to consider as you go along and become familiar with job types. In the worst case scenario, you will encounter some condition that will slow you down to the rate of one job per day and make you want to tear your hair out. In the best case scenario, you will get your momentum and have days where work flows, you have time to breathe, and you can do additional jobs.

What about your comfort with the job? (After an auto accident this year, my back became unreliable and was injured twice during merchandising and other jobs. I now do only easy-for-me assignments. There are plenty of other assignments for someone who has the backbone for the job. haha.) Is your back in great condition? Can you stretch, kneel, squat, use appropriate pressure, carry and balance objects, etc.? If so, you might have the kind of back that is useful in merchandising. This leads to the idea that as you go along and become efficient in the work generally, you might be able to add mystery shops or other assignments and build routes or better-paid work days.

Speaking of routes, where do you live? (rhetorical)

One recent merchandising job took place in locations that were well-spaced along a major highway at the rate of at least one per suburb, or approximately twenty minutes apart from each other. If you could access this type of project and you could perform your task efficiently, you could perform multiple merchandising tasks in one day along with other, nearby shops.

If you stick close to home and home is rural or small town, you might enjoy recurring tasks. Some people perform recurring tasks in the same store and work there many times per month. I don't know what they are earning, but they are not incurring much travel expense by working this way. Their revenue appears to be additive.

Why not give it a try and find out whether it will suit you?

I do work for Survey.com through their Merchandiser app. You download the app in your phone's app store (apple app store, google, etc). I've completed over $1,000 in 6 months. As for specific pay, it varies by job. Most of them pay a flat fee per job like... $10 for a job they estimate to take $20 mins. Occasionally, they do have per hour work, and it usually is $15 per hour. They do store resets, display audits, price audits, POP placements, and more. It is very flexible, and you only apply for what you want to do. I've had only good experiences with the company. It is all revealed, so there is no "mystery" shopping or having to be sneaky either. If you sign up, please use referral code: sarahhRBXB

@childofgod2911 wrote:

I do work for Survey.com through their Merchandiser app. You download the app in your phone's app store (apple app store, google, etc). I've completed over $1,000 in 6 months. As for specific pay, it varies by job. Most of them pay a flat fee per job like... $10 for a job they estimate to take $20 mins. Occasionally, they do have per hour work, and it usually is $15 per hour. They do store resets, display audits, price audits, POP placements, and more. It is very flexible, and you only apply for what you want to do. I've had only good experiences with the company. It is all revealed, so there is no "mystery" shopping or having to be sneaky either. If you sign up, please use referral code: sarahhRBXB

Nothing like a troll from Survey.com making a plug on the boards. I guess you do have to be sneaky after all lol.

Im getting $12 an hour

I find the difference in pay is that some of the hourly pay is for time that you are not really doing "work". For example, you are being paid when you get to the store, so walking to receiving, looking for a cart, searching for your boxes, filling out paperwork, etc..is all paid time...whereas with mystery shopping, it is goal based no matter what it takes to get the job done you only get paid for that report being filled out no matter what it takes to get it done. We have all had some nightmare shops that take an hour or more plus gas and drive time, then another 30 minutes on a report and uploading pictures. When calculating your pay comparison try calculating that extra time and those expenses into the equation to find what you are really making.

I am of course referring to normal job board assignments and not the bonused shops. That is where you need to get. The go-to for flaked on shops or hard to fill locations. Now that my schedule is really full and I am working 7 days a week I am terrible about taking regular shops for $10-$20. I actually had to flake on 2 shops last week. I have NEVER done that before. I feel terrible but my other jobs ended up tripling my time commitment and I totally forgot about those two $15 shops that I had scheduled until I received a violation. I really feel terrible, I've had a perfect record.

I do signage projects for CITGO locations and am regularly assigned 36 in my area at $17 each, which is a nice payout of over $600 roughly every other month. In the largest city I work there are 20 locations and roughly half are so close together that an easy route can be done and finish the entire city in two days.

If you go over your time email your CDM with the time.I do it all the time with mine as some tend to go over and I will not work for small wages.
I made $6.50 an hour this weekend doing flat rate projects for SPAR.[/quote]

@LeslieKay111 wrote:

I actually had to flake on 2 shops last week. I have NEVER done that before. I feel terrible but my other jobs ended up tripling my time commitment and I totally forgot about those two $15 shops that I had scheduled until I received a violation. I really feel terrible, I've had a perfect record.

LeslieKay111, It's only normal to feel terrible, but we've all been in situations that, for one reason or another, required us to change our schedules to meet other commitments. If you've had a good rapport with the companies where you had to flake, let's hope they will be understanding! Stuff happens. Wishing good things for you!

In a few words not enough.

No pay raise in 3 going on 4 years.