Clients switch MSP's for lower pay?

Hello all,
So I went to an MSP site today where I normally can get a $10 super quick and easy gas station/age-check shop. They weren't there - none at any location in my state. I just got an email for the same assignment only through another MSP. Pay is now $6 + $1 reimbursement. To add insult to injury, there's a 20 minute video training, you have to take photos undercover, and it's now a mystery shop, not a revealed shop. :-/ Anybody else get the message?

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

More About Payment

It happened to many of my regular shops in January, and everyone here has the same story. Clients often have 1-year contracts. Some of them are not worth my bother any more, some have just disappeared. It's the economy.

Yah, I've noticed fewer shops and less bonus/driving incentives, too. I've only done 2 shops for Maritz so far this year. They used to be my main company - lots of shops, good pay, good bonuses. Many companies expect more of us... sorry, I'm NOT going to drive one hour for a $6 shop. Since I'm in a small town, I have to explain that 1 hour=60 highway miles for me and the small towns that they're desperately trying to schedule usually don't have many assignments from other companies.

Yes, the bonuses are hard to come by because there are more shoppers and fewer jobs. I have to laugh because a company I work with posts about 20 shops a week in my area. These shops used to languish on the boards until they got bonused to around 2X their base price. Last year they didn't last long enough to get bonused and this year more than half of them are gone within 15 minutes of posting and standardly they are all gone within 24 hours. At least the base fee is still the same as for the past 4-5 years--which due to inflation is in effect a pay reduction.

Ath and their bank shops are a perfect example of this. Frustrates me; more work less pay, so I don't do them.

Yes, I have noticed lower pay also. I just stick to my resolution that I will only accept jobs that pay a certain amount. Also, if companies really need a shop done at the last minute, they are usually willing to negotiate fees and bonuses. So I love those last minute shops.

Very few last minute shops in my market anymore. Most frequently they are from flakes and rejects but the companies seem to be packing everything into the first two weeks of the month so they can just repost the flakes and rejects as if they were new shops at the same old price and still get finished by the end of the month.

It's like a cattle call. The past two months, competition here has become noticeably stiffer. Jobs posted for the month disappear before the 4th, and actually there are very few re-posts. Unemployment continues to rise. As there are fewer bonuses, mileage, flakes and rejects, the supposition is that well-qualified and out of work shoppers are trying to make ends meet. Lower pay for the same work is an unfortunate side effect of the sluggish economy and of supply and demand.

I noticed that some jobs I rarely had much competition for are getting taken before the emails are sent-by a company with a low number of shoppers, by design, yet.

**********************************************************************
“Lying in bed would be an altogether perfect and supreme experience if only one had a colored pencil long enough to draw on the ceiling."
~Gilbert K. Chesterton

I am certainly watching to see how this all plays out. In my area I think we have about bottomed out on the recession. We have over 10% unemployment and 'underemployment' is rampant. Home foreclosures for February were 22,000 more in my county than in January. I suspect the January/February change was due to the bad PR of a bank foreclosing over the holidays so February was'catch up'time. The March results will be telling. But I do think that in my area we are probably at the bottom and it is just a matter of time to climb out of the hole. Local employment is not yet on the rise and yet I figure that by late summer or early fall some companies are going to realize that this is their chance to grab market share and there will be more shops.

I lost some mystery shops because the MSP that got the contract has other assignments with the client, which specified that anyone doing those don't get to do the mystery shops. I have had several companies call me. Surprisingly, one of my regular companies called me several times at the beginning of the month with offers of bonuses even to areas in the metropolitan area. I am doing more merchandising than mystery shopping right now, though. We may have a bad economy, an idea which may be heavily media-driven, but I'm surprised at how much merchandising there is. I get inquiries all the time, and accepted two regular assignments, one rather large, on Friday. (I have made an effort to sign up with more companies in the last month.) I am also going to be working with the census. I finished my training Thursday. For a few weeks, scheduling will be a matter of whose deadline is first. :-)

I was doing a "find the demonstrator" shop in Walmart today. It was the first time I had been in in several months. I noted that there was significantly less merchandise out. The front aisle near the registers is usually loaded with 4 sided displays and promotions stretching out from a foot or so away from the head of the line for the register. These were all gone and it was a huge empty space. Normally in the main aisles going from the front to the back of the store there are displays 2 pallets wide. There were fewer in aisle displays and they were only a single pallet instead of a 4 square of pallets. Shelves were mostly well stocked but not crammed as they usually are. So Walmart itself appeared to have significantly less merchandise overall, though certainly the greeting cards, sunglasses displays and jewelry that are handled separately were as crammed as usual.

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login

Clients switch MSP's for lower pay?

Create an Account or Log In

Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies

Mystery Shopper Magazine