@nimbusrogue wrote:

I lost track. Not really, but you know what I mean.

Would that be when you're inputting after midnight, alternating between laughing hysterically and crying, knowing that you have too much time invested to just call it quits, but feeling like it is never going to end?

Poor things, I feel so bad for you all. I hope this company suffers the same fate. I think it should be that you get paid per every, say, 100 prices, in increments of 100, or something fair.

I mean, what is the point of checking the prices when you can check them online. Does .02 cents really make that much of a difference in competition that you have to put people in complete danger? Who, exactly, is paying for this crap anyway?

I told my scheduler there was No Way I was going to go through the 3000+ entries on the Sassie site!(which I was completely shocked to see!) She said, I could just scan and email them) So far so good...

@spicy1 wrote:

JASFLALMT, was yours covert? If so, how did you manage 9 hours without getting tossed out? I'd love to do them if they were not covert. I don't have base access though.

Mine was "covert" but I used the suggested charity price checking at customer service before I started. In my big big box store no one cared, several customers asked if I worked there.

I actually cried when I was finally able to hit "submit". Such a miserable experience.

@spicy1 wrote:

Poor things, I feel so bad for you all. I hope this company suffers the same fate. I think it should be that you get paid per every, say, 100 prices, in increments of 100, or something fair.

I mean, what is the point of checking the prices when you can check them online. Does .02 cents really make that much of a difference in competition that you have to put people in complete danger? Who, exactly, is paying for this crap anyway?

In answer to your question about who is paying for this, it is apparently the U.S. government. Below is a portion of an article that explains the price study. As a military retiree who frequents the commissary, it saddens me to see the waste of money on this study. I doubt the information gathered will be of any use as I read about the struggles of mystery shoppers to comply with this study.

"The government is constantly looking at ways to save money and each year the commissary budget comes into question. How can they cut the $1.4 billion commissary budget? Over the years many ideas have been presented, from privatizing the commissary to creating a private brand or even using variable pricing.
The government has finally decided to do something more progressive and hired an outside firm to study ways to save money. These cost-cutting studies will cost the commissary nearly $4 million.
The Defense Authorization Act gave the DoD the responsibility of determining how to save the government money by cutting the commissary budget. The Department of Defense contracted XXXXXX to conduct 2 studies in order to determine exactly how to cut the Defense Commissary Agency (DECA) budget. These two studies cost nearly $4 million and yes, that came out of the commissary budget.
The Defense Commissary Agency says that customers save on average 30 percent compared to civilian grocery stores based on their own research. The government doesn’t want to just take their word for it however. XXXXXXX is now creating a methodology to determine price comparisons.
The Defense Authorization Act gave the Department of Defense the ability to test some of these money-saving options out, such as variable pricing. Variable pricing would mean pricing products differently across the country based off the price in the market. Products in the north typically cost more than some in the south. That means families in some parts of the country will be spending more on groceries than others."

Here's the actual link but I'm not sure it will work for you. I have a problem with the link on Internet Explorer but it seems to load ok with Firefox:

[militaryshoppers.com]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/19/2016 04:11PM by kenasch.

Kenasch - that was an interesting article. Apparently those who shop at military commissaries save about 30% compared to average US prices. So, I will put my consulting hat on, and predict that the outcome of the survey is a recommendation to raise prices. Instantly, the money-losing operation will turn a profit. Maybe I can send the company who has been hired to do the study a bill for 10% of their fee. I will even write the report!

If they paid a reasonable fee then they could have the work done on time and done well. That is why I think it is ridiculous that they won't give people an idea of what a shop entails until after it has been assigned. It is too bad that the MCS are generally so low paying.

I think people are starting to catch on. Another one in my area has been hanging out untouched on the board for a few days now. I was just asked if I wanted it. Hmm, tempting...

Had I not read this thread I would've jumped on this project.

Thanks to all for the heads up.

I wish I had gone on the forum before accepting the Commissary audit. So far, I have worked at the store for 14 hours, traveled 100 miles in two days, and spent a huge amount of time trying to print the form out so that I could even read it. The font was really small...guess that is how they say it is only 20 or so pages. Oh, and I am still not finished. Been entering the prices for the past 2 hours and have to go back again tomorrow to do the meat and frozen foods so I can finally say goodbye to this nightmare. Reminds me of the IKEA shops.

I just did my first one yesterday at a small independent health food-type store. I just did two departments which both carried a limited selection. They called me and said they would increase the per-scan payment but didn't specify how much. I had been dismissing the emails offering the lowest item payment, but they couldn't get anyone else to come out here near the beach and had a deadline. I will think very long and hard before I consider doing another one.

I actually love these grocery store pricing audits.

To be fair: the first time I ever did a pricing audit it was for 100 items and it took me over 2 hours. I can tell you, I did not like it at all, but the pay was decent (paid a reimbursement amount that was per 25 item increment, on top of the usual commission). But the more often I did them, the more familiar I became with a store layout and the faster I got at doing these things. What initially took me 2-3 hours for 100 items became 1-2 hrs for 200 items. I quickly became the goto person whenever a particular location came up for pricing audits. And I was even offered PAD for a location that is 0.3 miles away from me!

Trust me, it pays to know the layout of the store beforehand. And I now love pricing audits since they pay more on average than a typical grocery store shop for the same MSP.

I'm sure there will be plenty to be had for you, new member Lurezia. 2 hours for 200 items would be fast for a Commissary or covert assignment. Still, that would be 9 hours for these PLUS another 5 to enter because their system hangs up after every few entries. These are not a matter of the speed of the evaluator. If you read through the comments, many of us who had difficulty here have years (decades?) of experience. Glad to know the company will have someone to go to, though. I'm sure at this point, you can ask for hefty bonuses.

I signed up for one of the grocery store audits, the description I read said 800 items, but the guidelines say 1400 items and 10 - 12 hours in the store. They gave me the audit, and I printed everything up. The print was tiny and the list was not organized in any fashion, not alphabetical, no numbers, and tiny print, and 22 pages. I explained to the scheduler that the payment would have to be doubled at a minimum and she said she could not afford it and she removed it from my job list.

Not to mention that their scenarios to tell the manager of the store were bad at the very least, just made for giving yourself away as a shopper. This is one of the 10 ft pole shops.. they would need to pay me double what I used to make in my previous job to do this, and I KNOW that ain't gonna happen.

I decided to kill myself and sign up for 3 of these in 3 days this weekend in a city 100 miles from home. Given the distance, I talked the MSC into a total of $675 compensation for the three, given the travel, food requirements, and the ridiculously small original fee. I was approved for the third around noon today, and an hour later got an email saying: all remaining audits starting 22 September or later are canceled. DO NOT complete these audits.

I inquired as to why since I already made plans, including a small dinner shop for another company, and got the short answer of "the client canceled the program."

Is...is that a thing? Can an MSC cancel scheduled shops? Do they? Do I even have any recourse? I had to apologize and cancel the other shop with the other company, and thankfully I hadn't booked lodging.

I work for the government, that sort of short notice cancellation of a contract isn't usually a thing.

I suspect they will be regrouping. They should have called all of the "Covert" locations (Or the Head Office/District Office) and made arrangements to allow an auditor to conduct the audit. The Base Commissaries are, afterall, no real competition for Safeway, Albertson's, Kroger, Walmart or any grocery store really. I'll be the MCS had to ask for more money to bail their auditor's out of jail.

I do merchandising and I was asked recently if I was from Advantage. I said no and asked why. He said because they have been assigned to do price auditing in Walmart and it is NOT allowed and he was told to find out if any merchandiser is from Advantage trying to do price audits and to toss them out and report their names to Advantage to not allow them back in the store, EVER!

@spicy1 wrote:

I suspect they will be regrouping. They should have called all of the "Covert" locations (Or the Head Office/District Office) and made arrangements to allow an auditor to conduct the audit. The Base Commissaries are, afterall, no real competition for Safeway, Albertson's, Kroger, Walmart or any grocery store really.

Spicy1, what is your basis that Commissaries are not competition for any grocery chain? Many military bases are located near cities where military members have the choice of shopping on base or in town. Many live off base where a civilian grocery store may be closer than the commissary . So any sales at the commissary are sales loss to the civilian grocer and vice versa. Often the difference in price determines where the military member will do his/her shopping. The commissaries are often less expensive but not always for every category or item. So the commissaries and the civilian stores are definitely in competition.

I have had it with this MSC. I guess the system is overloaded with shoppers trying to input their prices. Even though I am saving every 10 minutes, I get a screen that says I have been logged off due to inactivity and lost all of the work I did. This happened three times so far. Now, the little wheel keeps on turning and turning trying to connect so that I can finish this nightmare and say goodbye to the MSC forever. A-r-r-rg-g-g-g!!!!!

It is now past the deadline and I want to go to sleep. But, no, I can't connect to finish. Where is the wine????

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2016 04:02AM by nslowry.

Well, where I live the prices on the base hover around 70% of the prices at chain grocery stores. Where I used to live, in Hawaii, the prices on the base are around 50%-65% of the prices at the chains. So, that's my experience. And that is in every category, categorically.

deleted wrong link.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2016 04:07AM by kenasch.

@spicy1 wrote:

Well, where I live the prices on the base hover around 70% of the prices at chain grocery stores. Where I used to live, in Hawaii, the prices on the base are around 50%-65% of the prices at the chains. So, that's my experience. And that is in every category, categorically.

Not everyone agrees with you:

[www.whidbeynewstimes.com]

So the prices across the board are 50-70% of the competitor's rate and they're not competition for other grocers?

...what?

If you're looking at the number of stores and saying that commissaries aren't going to run Walmart out of business, you're right. But on a store to store, across town basis? They're certainly competition for stores like Albertsons and Kroger. And the government is trying to determine the relevancy of commissaries, looking to cut the benefit due to cost and a lack of payoff. The audits aren't focused on competition in the sense you're talking about anyway, they're a military benefit.

Sure, I meant strictly for Military Personnel, because, unless you work on Base, the lower pricing does not affect you. And that is a very small percentage of the U.S. population, that has access to the Base. And most Vet's don't have access either. So, in that SENSE, it's not competition. Which is the only sense that I can see.

One of the main reasons I don't want to do an audit for a particular store is because if I identify my real self during an audit, how can I show up at the same store after that and perform a mystery shop? They now know me as someone who works for an MSC as an auditor; if I appear in the store anytime afterwards, won't that throw up a red flag for any employee who worked with me (managers, supervisors, etc.)? I decided I would prefer to keep my options open. As far as I'm concerned, once you have audited a store, you can never go back there as a mystery shopper. Why lose that option for all the days, months and years you can return to that same store as a secret shopper?

@ceasesmith wrote:

@Kathy1296 wrote:

I never post but I just had to comment on this one. I recently did my first audit for this MSC. I have watched them asking for auditors for a large electronics store for a long time and always passed. I finally bit on a smaller department audit of a Large store. My husband was in the hospital but I had already committed so I drove 30 min each way to the store. The audit said it would take 2 to 4 hours. I was at the store over 4 hours and scanned in ups codes and typed descriptions until I was exhausted and finally finished. I took pictures as back ups in case there were any questions. I drove home in a rainstorm. I logged in yesterday to find I received a 1 with the comment "Your shop has been rejected because the item count is lower than the usual for this location".
First and last audit for me.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. What a terrible experience! Hope hubby recovered 100%.

I cannot believe they did this to you! What a horrible experience! Well, I can assure you, and me, that I will never take on one of these audits, ever. It sounds like barely-paid torture!

Those of you who completed these - how long did it take for them to be approved? It's been a week and no word from a editor.

I did 2. Both with edits that required me to verify prices they said were higher than the national average. One so far was accepted and one I'm in the process tonight of verifying tons of prices they want me to double check. Plus they said the prices for the store brand dairy items weren't on the store brand approved list. This is taking me additional hours to go over. Just an insane amount of time for all of this.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/2016 03:38AM by nimbusrogue.

Mine came back with the price checks, too. One I actually did mess up, reversing the sale and regular prices. Every other one was just more of my time wasted. I think they are not accounting for regional differences -- cranberries in Massachusetts are going to be a lot cheaper than they are in Arizona.

Agreed it's just an enormous waste of time on these just to verify that, yes the prices are what I said they were for the 185 items they wanted me to double check on. Regional prices are apparently not taken into consideration. California alone is expensive, especially given the drought. I'm in Southern California. I can't imagine how much more expensive Northern California is! I'm not clear even on why they want sales prices when sales come and go every week. Anyhow, I'm not touching another one of these with a 10 foot pole.