I had to double take when I saw this. ACL mystery shops a local chain of casual dining restaurants here in New York, and they rarely provide payment or even reimbursement that covers all of the required purchase options. This chain of restaurants has also had some pretty scummy mystery shops in the past (they wanted shoppers to refuse to leave a tip and argue with the manager when they come).

Now I saw they want dinner video shopped. Frankly, I've never done a video shop, but considering it needs special training and equipment, I always assumed it made sense for really high ticket items like car sales and apartments, but that would come with commensurate pay, right?

Nope. There's a tiny reimbursement and no pay for this shop; no more than what they do for a normal mystery shop. Does ACL or, more likely, their client, really expect video shoppers to take the bait? This is ridiculous.

Yes, they expect it. Hopefully shoppers have enough smarts to refuse the assignment until the pay is commensurate with the workload, but most of the ACL shops do end up getting scheduled somehow...

Ridiculous!

or laughable.

I better get a $200 steak.

Recently, I have done a bit of research. The major video MSCs figure that there are fewer than 500 trained and experienced video shoppers who own their own equipment AND that they are willing to use. I am willing to bet that more than half of those strongly prefer to work only with schedulers who have a lot of video shopping (not just scheduling) experience. We are almost all very wary of taking video shops where a large reimbursement depends on the video. (I have not seen the job description, but it sounds like that would be the case.) Shooting good video at a dinner table strikes me as pretty iffy using a shirt-mounted camera (I have done it for some fast casual shops and was not pleased with the results. It takes some contortions to get the food into the video and other contortions to get the server's torso and face into the same shot!) Since so few shoppers have the glasses-mounted video cams, the MSC would probably have to supply that, and they (and the clients) may well not be prepared for the "jerky" video that seems typical of using the glasses cams. ACL might be better served to hire an experienced video shopping MSC and pay to have some trial shops done (for which video shoppers expect to be well paid!) by some of the best shoppers that the experienced MSC can find.

In other words, a feasibility study seems to be in order.

Edited to add Steve, like any MSC new to video, they will get the shops filled. Whether they get what they are looking for is a different matter altogether.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2015 09:00PM by walesmaven.

If they aren't paying a fee and aren't set up to loan equipment those shops may not get filled. Fees for fast casual video are in the $45 to $60 range and we all know those do not take longer than 20 to 30 minutes. If you think your enjoyment of a meal diminishes when performing a traditional shop, I promise it is even less when dining on a video shop.

Maybe they are just "throwing it out there" to see who takes the bait

I'm guessing they'll have trouble filling these shops because most video shoppers are quite experienced and won't do them for what they're offering.

Ridiculous.

I'll pass thanks. My one video shop didn't work out as the MSC (a different one) sent me the video camera equipment and it turns out that the buttonhole cover on the camera was missing and it seems the scheduler didn't believe me.....I'm not off to a good start with the concept of video shopping thus far I'm afraid BUT this one shop would have paid $50. I'm not down with the learning curve of a video shop for reimbursement only - nope, no can do. I'd also never do the above mentioned shop where you refuse to leave a tip and then argue with a manager about it - no way. Talk about tacky!!!!!

This is the most ridiculous thing ever.

I wonder if @shopsatacl would like to comment on this.

Also apparently NYC is not exactly covered up with video shoppers. I had a discussion about this last year with a scheduler. She told me NYC is very hard to schedule because full time shoppers (more likely to own cams) can't afford to live there and it's a very expensive place to visit, so they don't often take trips there for video work.

@bgriffin wrote:

I wonder if @shopsatacl would like to comment on this.

Also apparently NYC is not exactly covered up with video shoppers. I had a discussion about this last year with a scheduler. She told me NYC is very hard to schedule because full time shoppers (more likely to own cams) can't afford to live there and it's a very expensive place to visit, so they don't often take trips there for video work.

Even if I put my nose to the grindstone and mystery shopped 24/7 I couldn't afford to live in NY. It's pretty much just discretionary income for me: money I piss away on hooch and video games.Thank god I have a "main" job otherwise I'd have to like move out to Jersey.

The icing on the cake is that it costs an arm and a leg to cross a bridge or tunnel into the city and then park, or just an arm to take the train in and back and then the subway to the location. I have done it both ways when the price was right. It tells you a lot when they need a video shopper from MD to do video on Manhattan and in the other Burroughs. Even when I am in close-in NJ visiting relatives, it takes a minimum fee of $100 to get me into The City, as much as I love, love, love NYC.

I wonder if, like almost all of their shops, ACL is requiring 2 people for this? If so they're going to be sadly annoyed by the results. Every video food shop I have done has specifically said no guests allowed for a reason.

Also I wonder what level you have to be to see these in the first place? I cannot but then I pissed off a scheduler and got my rating dropped to a bare minimum. It may be that the few video shoppers interested in these wouldn't have a high enough rating to see them to begin with.

At least one of my fast casual video clients does allow another diner. Their sample video actually has a guest who is somehow barely seen. For me it is always quicker to just be alone. It doesn't seem as odd to be looking all around the restaurant while with a guest it would appear rude and strange to not focus on them.

I have heard of some better dining shops being tested for video and a partner was required. As uncomfortable as it is for me eating when I'm not even on camera, can you imagine getting to sit across the table, LOL. Add to that you are going to sit there for an hour or two and not even be able to carry on a normal conversation unless talking about the food and the weather will get you through.

I would imagine there's a lot of video work to be done in New York. Maybe it's time for companies to start paying fees that full-time shoppers can afford to accept.

You bring up a really good point we take for granted, tolls and parking...

I think that many shoppers in Manhattan have other jobs and shop to help make ends meet....so they are usually not dealing with the issue of tolls, parking and cabs as much. But then you have the component of those shoppers having little interest in video if they are using MSing strictly for lifestyle enhancements.

As Wales pointed out, the fact that they use a shopper from MD for video shops in NYC speaks volumes. There is most likely very few, if any, video shoppers based in Manhattan. This MSC needs to understand the draw for its urban shoppers better. A free $200 dinner might make me put up with a no fee dinner shop in NYC, but once it starts costing me money to do a job, the experience and opulence level of that assignment better be going up from there.

ACL has a bar assignment here in LA for a location that I walk by on a regular basis. It reimburses well and even pays a hefty (for ACL) $50 to start with these days, yet they beg for shoppers each month because it's such an unappealing assignment. I would much rather take the no-fee dinner assignment at that same location, since it allows me to have a good experience.

Absurd. Lately I've been turning down any that don't fully cover reimbursement, as I am sick of it! Don't take 'em, hopefully they'll get a clue.

@walesmaven wrote:

Recently, I have done a bit of research. The major video MSCs figure that there are fewer than 500 trained and experienced video shoppers who own their own equipment AND that they are willing to use. I am willing to bet that more than half of those strongly prefer to work only with schedulers who have a lot of video shopping (not just scheduling) experience.

Fewer than 500 in the United States? Many thoughts running through my mind, not sure what sense to make of it.

I think that number has jumped dramatically in just the last three or four years. When I started nobody gave me any exact figures, but an educated guess would be there were less than 200.

Remember, they are telling me about the number that they are willing to use who also own their own equipment. I, too, think that the number is much lower than 500, but doubt that they are going to tell me how much lower! There are a lot of video shopper that work a few shops and disappear. The are many that rely upon EPMS, for instance, which only has apartment shops, to send out the equipment. The "majors" favor shoppers who own their equipment. Lisa, when you started more VMSCs were willing to loan equipment; now most strongly favor those who own their own equipment. I was shocked that there were fewer than 1000, considering the number of training session and certification that we hear about. But the proof is in the number that the video MSCs have at the top of their lists.

I just heard a surprisingly low number of shoppers who fit all the above criteria and are willing to travel more than 500 miles. I don't remember the exact figure and I am no longer in that group.

When I was at the IMSC conference I spoke with two different MSC's who were or already had stopped loaning equipment. In both cases it was because of shoppers who did not return equipment.

@Misanthrope wrote:

I had to double take when I saw this. ACL mystery shops a local chain of casual dining restaurants here in New York, and they rarely provide payment or even reimbursement that covers all of the required purchase options. This chain of restaurants has also had some pretty scummy mystery shops in the past (they wanted shoppers to refuse to leave a tip and argue with the manager when they come).

Now I saw they want dinner video shopped. Frankly, I've never done a video shop, but considering it needs special training and equipment, I always assumed it made sense for really high ticket items like car sales and apartments, but that would come with commensurate pay, right?

Nope. There's a tiny reimbursement and no pay for this shop; no more than what they do for a normal mystery shop. Does ACL or, more likely, their client, really expect video shoppers to take the bait? This is ridiculous.

Didn't you take one of those "Scummy" no tip assignments? I recall reading a suspenseful re-cap of the job.

@Madetoshop wrote:

@Misanthrope wrote:

I had to double take when I saw this. ACL mystery shops a local chain of casual dining restaurants here in New York, and they rarely provide payment or even reimbursement that covers all of the required purchase options. This chain of restaurants has also had some pretty scummy mystery shops in the past (they wanted shoppers to refuse to leave a tip and argue with the manager when they come).

Now I saw they want dinner video shopped. Frankly, I've never done a video shop, but considering it needs special training and equipment, I always assumed it made sense for really high ticket items like car sales and apartments, but that would come with commensurate pay, right?

Nope. There's a tiny reimbursement and no pay for this shop; no more than what they do for a normal mystery shop. Does ACL or, more likely, their client, really expect video shoppers to take the bait? This is ridiculous.

Didn't you take one of those "Scummy" no tip assignments? I recall reading a suspenseful re-cap of the job.

I know from first hand experience, one could say.

LOL!

If you hold on long enough, ALC will add 'bonuses' to reimbursement only shops. I usually have to go to the restaurants no one else wants, but I make more money.

MF is the only MSC that I've found that reimburses tolls and parking - $3 is the max for parking, though in my city.

I'm seeing a few MSCs who are offering $2 shop fees, where the fee used to be $5 and more if they couldn't fill it. My guess: The $2 shops and the no shop fee video shops will end up with a higher fee or a bonus.

The MSCs seem to be trying out all kinds of things to try to pay us less and see what sticks.