Two different stores owned by the same company. You know the places. Some audits require photos and some don’t. I’m considering doing them since the fee here is at a little over $30.00 each now.

I just wanted to get your thoughts on how much time they actually take. One claims it could take up to 3 hours. The other one claims up to 3 hours or more.

What are they like?

I haven't taken them. There are so many mystery shops available for this store through MF and others that I don't want to do a revealed shop there and risk my ability to do future shops.

I've done two audits at one of the stores, non-photo. Both times the audits took less than two hours.

Thanks, James. Are there a lot of pages to the paperwork on those jobs?

There's about 9-10 pages, but you only enter any discrepancies.

One thing that helped me was the first time the associate who accompanied me went through my list of departments and we got the list into the order the departments were in the store, it saved a lot of walking.

That's really smart.

It's a lot of work and back breaking because it requires you standing for 2-3 hours. I did one that involves scanning the bar codes of 100 items. It took me over an hour however for other shoppers it took them 3 - 4 hours. For the amount of work vs payment I would not recommend taking them but then again if you have lots of free time then by all means.

I also did one that didn't require photos and use the scanner. I was there over 3 hours and as I remember it, it took about an hour to do the report. I wouldn't do one again for the time it took, it paid $30 or $35.

I just did two of these today. They take me on average 1.25 hours at the store, and about 10 minutes to put the report in. The only thing you are entering into the report are the items that did not scan at the correct price, and basics about when you were there.

One of them requires you to scan all the pages of the audit and submit them as photos, and the other one does not. Even though the directions say that you need photos, the only one you take is the authorization page. They changed them during the summer, and they now only have 85 items to check, with a visual check of some standards while you are there.

The smaller version of one of the bigger brands only has 50 items to check. I get these done in about 35-45 minutes.

The only time I have had one take longer then 1.5 hours was when the hand held scanner system was down and we had to write them all down then go to the register and punch them all in. That one was when they still had 100 items on them, and it still only took me 2 hours.

I do not organize by department. I know which items need to be checked and that they are manyu times in close proximity to one another. I have all my pages clipped on my board and flip back and forth as we walk through the store. I do not do any back tracking, and I move fast. The store personnel appreciate the speed.

I have done many of these each month for over a year. Easy work, with very easy reporting.

It was my absolute worst nightmare of a shop. Not so much because of the requirements but because of having to take shelter for 45 minutes because of a tornado warning. Then a power surge left the computer unable to connect and look anything up, I waited for about an hour to see if things would reboot. I had to leave and come back the next day, but a new sale flyer had come out. So had to redo all sale items and the scanners still weren't working. I had called MF and they promised me extra money to finish the shop because of all the issues, but of course it never materialized.


When it was all over, spent close to 7 hours on it, including the time in the shelter and wandering waiting for the system to reboot.

I will be completing a job today with an audit. Any suggestions or helpful hints on scanning the paperwork to submit. Any suggestions would be helpful. Can I scan all the paperwork in as photos and submit it to the company? Thanks any tips would be great. Thanks have a great week.

I have been avoiding these shops - looks like too little pay for too much time on your feet.

Just did my first one yesterday... 1:28 for the actual price audit. 1:47 total on site, including waiting for manager, making copies, scan checks, and ADA questions. About 10 minutes reporting.