@xenshopper wrote:

I really like doing work for Customer Impact, but I'm finding that their payments for merchandising/display work and audits seem to be getting too low to even consider. I feel like jobs that paid $15 a few years ago should be in the $20 range now, but instead they are at $9 or so...is it just me? Am I being unreasonable? Would love to hear what others think.

@2stepps wrote:

Sometimes it depends on the amount of work you have to do. Check on seeing if something is up $15 having to put something up or change out then $20 should be ok but a lot of different displays should be more. For $5 just drive by and see if the place is open while you are on your way somewhere else and you do not have to go but maybe a mile out of your way.

@Irene_L.A. wrote:

I got that and thought 9.00 wouldn't be enough to get me out of the house for an audit.....I'll stick to their great restaurant shops....not getting on any freeway for under 20.00, if that.

@xenshopper wrote:

I agree, Irene! At least I can afford a meal with the restaurant shop. I feel like they are trying to compete with the Marketforce movie standee assignments with this latest round of assignments...let's see who can pay the least to have someone receive a package, cart to location,assemble and set up display. Oh, and if it's not used, don't forget to ship it back. If they go any lower, we'll be paying them to do this one...

@yankeepoo2 wrote:

I only picked them up because I was able to work them into a route of others shops. I did think it was quite a lower fee amount compared a similar "display repair" I did for them last fall which paid $20 vs $9. I am hoping that the instructions are actually as easy as they describe them to be.

@TroyHawkins wrote:

Sounds like maybe a couple companies made low bids and CI had to come down to keep the project.

@stormraven wrote:

Yankeepoo2, please report back to let us know how it goes. I have held off taking these for many of the above reasons.

@TInaMarie wrote:

I am with you peeps! I saw those display assignments, too and I was like, "Are you serious!?" Yes, it seems that many companies want more for less. I have been getting "bonuses" with MF at the price some of my favorite projects used to me 5-10 years ago. Its so sad. I don't do nearly as much for them as I used to. Their base prices have gone to a ridiculous low!

I saw this previous thread and wanted to see how other folks are faring. I have enjoyed working with this company and really like most of the people working there. However, lately it does seem like they punish their most loyal merchandisers because:

1. they grossly underestimate the actual amount of time it takes to complete the 54 steps and photos required, one of which is always tracking down a manager or person to give you the okay to work (either at a Customer Service counter with one window open, 5 customers in line and a very slow clerk or by finding the one manager in the building who is almost always very busy, but seems to have the only authority (because the three floor supervisors at the front won't give the okay even though they are all just standing there).

2. Not only is the starting pay ridiculously low for the amount of work and time, but even though they like you to take on huge lists of work, they don't want to add on any route bonus. Or it will be measly - seriously offered $8 this past month when asked for help with a route of 30+ assignments because some of the locations were 20+ miles one-way from the next closest location.

3. Then to add insult to injury, they will pay someone else 3-4x the fee to go ahead and pick up those ones you asked for just a bit more to do - when you were already doing a huge number for them at the too-low-to-be-fair pay. Of course, I was too busy driving hundreds of miles for them to be able to read email or stalk the board and see they were willing to pay so much more for those locations. I guess it was too much to give me a call about it even though they have no issues calling me pretty regularly.

Maybe I should just wait and only pick up the out of the way assignments for the higher fees. Seems like I'd end up driving the same number of miles for the same total pay, but instead of 20 stops in a day, I'd have just 5.

Of course, what seems more logical to me is to reward the person who is working their tail off for you and either 1) pay fairly for all the stops to begin with or 2) go ahead and give them those out of the way stops they were willing to add to their route at that higher pay instead offered to others.

Actually I find them to be one of the best work/pay ratio companies. I made over $1000 in less than a week last month with them, and still had time for several other jobs.

The key to this company is picking up routes. Get to know the schedulers, they will work with you. And feel free to PM me with questions.

edited for typo

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/2018 10:33PM by stormraven73.

@stormraven73 wrote:

Actually I find them to be one of the best work/pay ratio companies. I made over $1000 in less than a week last month with them, and still had time for several other jobs.

The key to this company is picking up routes. Get to know the schedulers, they will work with you. And feel free to PM me with questions.

edited for typo

Thanks. I'd actually love to chat more privately. I can only afford to take big routes for them, or I don't make enough to get paid for my time once gas expense is taken out. So I need to learn what the tricks are to getting the time down at each location because I end up incurring lots of wasted time, particularly when the job requires I find and talk to employees at that location.

But there are also real issues with the work sometimes. The home improvement reworks last month took WAY, WAY longer than they estimated, not to mention the fun of physically crawling under filthy shelves to dig out the boxes the stores shoved so far back in there that all that remained in the aisle sometimes was my feet. I ended up making no profit because it took multiple days to get to all of them since they took so long to do each job.

And there was another that required pulling all old stock, putting up marketing materials and putting out a minimum of ten bundles of new stock at a minimum of 7 separate locations in the stores, with clicks and photos every time. However, most required putting out 20 bundles on at least 65 pegs in 16 different locations through the store. So, I really need to learn how that can be done in 10-15 minutes.

I am not familiar with the last one you listed, but had no problems with the home improvement "green sticker" jobs...other than dust, lol. PM me, I will gladly help.

I love Customer Impact shops, and usually find they pay a reasonable amount. There just aren't enough in my area, only complaint.

Haven't seen any merchandising shops with them but I did request a couple of shops today for next week.

I actually do quite well with CI. I take the $15 audits and recently got a few $25 audits and they pay me quickly.

$15 and $25 would be great!

@SunnyDays2 wrote:

I actually do quite well with CI. I take the $15 audits and recently got a few $25 audits and they pay me quickly.

@stormraven73 wrote:

I am not familiar with the last one you listed, but had no problems with the home improvement "green sticker" jobs...other than dust, lol. PM me, I will gladly help.

I did one of these and it took much longer than CI estimated. I put a comment in my report that it was a lot of work for such low pay. I ended up getting paid a bonus when my payment came.

I was just looking at a Second to None shop. It's online and pays $20. You have to register and take an evaluation and then spend a minimum of two hours browsing the web site and the time taking the evaluation doesn't count.

I send the scheduler a note that I'd like to do one, but I can't at less than minimum wage.

I have always like to work for them because they pay in a reasonable amount of time -- BUT I do think these most recent Netspend Merchandising projects are priced way too low. I now only take them when they are close by and I have other work in the area. I have also been frustrated with the fact that there are usually 8-10 shops in my area that I apply for and they will never give me more than 2 and then several of the rural ones stick out there for a while and yet they wont assign them for at least a week later......

I agree. I did ongoing merchandising for them last winter for $25 each, and last month I was asked to do it again for $18 each. No thanks.

I agree that Customer impact can have some really low shops. I just refuse to take them. If everyone would just do this you'd see those fees get higher. I have stopped working for companies where the pay has gone down substantially, or wasn't very high to begin with like Market Force. My husband and I did a number of their movie theatre installations and I can only say they were a joke and a real punishment to do because the money offered wasn't even close to minimum wage, for the amount of time needed. Because we are professionals we completed all installations even ones that were supposed to be easy. The time frames they tell you for some of these installations can be to do is so far off. We did one installation that was supposed to be easy but which had about 140 different pieces. I think we finally figured out we were making about $2.20 an hour except that there were two of us so it was actually about $1.10 an hour ,and my husband and I both have a lot of experience putting together cardboard movie displays. The last one I did for them I photographed all the pieces that went together, they stretched down an entire hall and over two entrances to the films in a mega plex.

I average $18/ hr on the Netspends, including drive time. How is this low?

.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2018 01:27AM by luren924.

I think it depends a lot on the proximity of the locations. The time is variable for sure. I think I got more money on one of the odd green dot assignments because no associate in the department would sign--no manager til later. So with delays, calls, a store mgr finally telling CS to sign, it looked like extra from those facts added. Often straightforward, my brain needs something simple some days. I like the variety. Some stops are definitely more time-consuming. But then no reports at home. And I recently began getting the first wave emails that offered the locations surrounding me. Got most I requested. Then I got the odd leftover for more money. Works for me.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2018 01:16AM by CABZmom.

It really depends on how much is involved into the assignment. And really is up to the contractor who sets the fee.

CI are definitely a favorite company, for the same reasons many others have mentioned.

As for merchandising jobs, I work weekly for a very prominent international brand, servicing displays and managing inventories for multiple major national retail chains.

I get $13 an hour + minimum wage for driving time between jobs.

I would never do a merchandising job for any less than that scale.

And no job ever has the appropriate time calculated, no matter who you are working for. Luckily the DM for this company is local, and I have worked with her a bunch doing complete resets for a chain that just changed hands. She's fairly new to the company, and at first was unsure of my comment about time allotments being totally unrealistic. Now she nows that the times I input are accurate and the company-allocated ones are not.

FWIW, if anyone reading this in the mountain west region and is looking for steady weekly income for relatively easy work, she needs to hire more reps. There is some kneeling and mild lifting involved, but it's a great job with a totally reputable company. Payment is via DD on Thursday following the week work. Max time per week is 27 hours 59 minutes to keep everyone at part-time levels.

I had a banner year mystery shopping last year, earning over $10k. While my MS income has dropped off considerably for 2019, partly due to this regular merchandising job, my gross income between the 2 will represent a 50% increase over mystery shopping alone.

I'm following this topic, so chime in if you are interested in more information.

Hi CoolMusic.. Is it only for the mountain west region? Do they have anything thing on the East coast for that company?

I am only aware of openings in the Rocky Mountain region as that is the area my district manager covers.

Ditto. Three monthly rounds at $25, now listed here at $9. Called scheduler and was told no budget for bonuses. Forget it!

@Shoshi99 wrote:

Ditto. Three monthly rounds at $25, now listed here at $9. Called scheduler and was told no budget for bonuses. Forget it!

They tend to go up near the end of the round. I just took 5 at $20.

Ditto. I did a big route twice for $22 each, which was not as high as you'd think given the wide open spaces between each supermarket here out West. Just when I was looking forward to the next one, they dropped it to $9 and the scheduler said the budget was fixed. No thanks. Even at $22 it was barely above $15 an hour not counting all the gas. And storing their stuff in my house, and accepting the shipments...they got a lot of benefit from me that companies used to have full-time staff doing. It's a pity for both the MSC and the merchandiser, because at $9 they won't keep anyone who's not a newbie.

Cool, I'm in western Nebraska. I will complete routes in rural areas of KS, OK, CO, WY, NE, and SD.

The travel time is extensive, and I'd sure like some more info.

Thank you.

@ceasesmith if you are talking about the prepaid card routes, these tend to be monthly rounds, and they will gladly book routes. They have different chains they target for each round, and the tasks vary by chain. They average about 15 min per location, but can vary from 5 min to 30 min (rarely).

The winter wear restock takes much longer, up to an hour with a really messy display, but also has a much higher base pay. These are seasonal for winter, with several rounds.

The doctors' offices take about 7-10 min per rack, and they give first dibs to those who have serviced the locations previously. Each location is on a 3-month rotation, with 3 sets of locations in each area (so each month or so there are some locations being serviced).

If you need more details feel free to PM me.

I just did a restock at a doctors office and was only allowed access to 5 of 8 rooms. They accepted my report but I'm not sure if I'll be paid for all 8.

My first time so it took a little longer, but I'd do it again.

@wrosie I have one room at one of my locations that is always locked. I am still paid for it.

I'm in the Taos area, any opportunities here?

NomadTurtle

Customer Impact has some merchandising visits and retail audits up in that area....Taos, Penasco, Abiquiu etc.

You can sign up at our website at www.customerimpactinfo.com or if you want some more info or would like to contact me directly, feel free to email me at dprice@customerimpactinfo.com

Daniel Prive
VP, Operations
Customer Impact, LLC
dprice@customerimpactinfo.com