I noticed that one type of audit, the one where you may be on your feet in a retail store up to three hours while pricing items and/or performing ADA verification, has a new and lower fee. The new fee is $24. Recently, the initial fee was $25. According to someone here, this shop's fee used to be $50.

I now finish these shops fairly quickly, and the reports take little time. At the $24 fee, the hourly equivalent pay would still be decent for an efficient audit. However, there is always a possibility that due to conditions at the location, the audit could require three or more hours. How do you feel about this new, lower fee?*

*Elsewhere, I wrote that sometimes money does not matter. This is still true. However, with this type of audit, money does matter.

Hello, this was one of the first shops that I performed. I was at the particular location for almost 4 hours. The pay was $35. Because it's near my home and I can now complete these particular audits in under 2 hours, I will take it and arrive exactly 30 minutes after they open. It's actually a fun shop to audit. It's now posted at $26 which still isn't that bad for a newbie like myself. I would grab the audit however, you can only perform them during the week and I have a full time job. The one I did before was on a holiday and I was off. I think that the lower fee is based on locality.

I do a Wed/Tue grocery store audit for $32. A few months ago, the scheduler asked me to take on another location for the same fee plus a small bonus for gas.

A few weeks ago, I saw a new location posted, but for $30. I asked about the lower fee. The scheduler told me that new locations had a lower fee, but if I could take it, she could offer the usual fee.

Now I can make a combination comment on this thread and the recent thread about bidding on shops.


Yay! The aforementioned shop fee went up slightly, something I bid on but did not get went up substantially and came to me at a reasonable fee, and a third shop went up to a decent level. I get another decent shop day in places that I like. I get enough money to make the trip worthwhile. This is good. Very good!

If people keep posting how easy they are, they will lower them again...."hint"

Well this is my thang about doing these kinda of jobs. To me some companies are cheap when it comes to to paying. If your doing one that is 3 4 are 5 hours long that pays 25 35 dollars to me is cheap, and than they want to put in miles once again those companies are cheap. Ok I have been doing these kinda of jobs for over about 7 years. I,ve seen and done it all, I'm signed up with so many companies it isn,t funny. But theirs one that pays to me right. once are so a mouth they give you a flat rate of 50 bucks per store for 3 hours and yes mileage too. That's no different from audits, and all people do is go into into golden C for 3 hours and take servey's, won't give the place but it good and not fraud, but I'm just saying why lower pay when it's already hard for people out their that have a 9 to 5 job, I guess people just have to no where to look online, and that's how people move from your company when the pay is lower than what it is and that person has been working for your company and that's their only job because the money was right at first than all of a min money changes, you do the math.

Interesting..... Do we want to contribute to overpayment for work? (That unfair condition may be at least as bad as underpayment for work.) Or, do we want to be compensated for our work according to the task/-s and additional costs we may incur for the purpose of performing that work? And, can we all afford to wait for big-bucks bonuses before we schedule jobs? If a fee compensates for mileage and/or wear and tear, should we refrain from deducting those costs at tax time? I do not have and answer or a solution to that convoluted little equation, but my tax guy knows what to do at tax time.

Anyway, I am pleased with my "negotiated" day. It is not the highest paid day in monetary terms, but it is a wonderful day overall: early in the journey I travel through an Autumn-colored valley en route to decently paid shops. On the other leg of the journey, I identify future potential shops and wonder if I would like to complete them. That would involve a different style of MSing and living. Then, I consider that I rarely have time for radically different shopping styles. Finally, I remember what others have posted here and contemplate the relative ease or difficulty of changing my world to accommodate extreme differences in MSing as it would be in my world. Even if money were fantastic, would more hours appear in my day, or might I become bionic and never again need sleep?

Seriously, now. I could not make this little trip without shops or some other method of paying for fuel. I know that others enjoy non-monetary aspects of their MSing endeavors. I have enjoyed reading about their experiences that are the result of MSing.....

I would think no shopper would push for lower fees.

So, I did one of these easy audits. The pay was lower than it was in the recent past, but it was commensurate with the difficulty of the job. After that, someone treated me to lunch at one of my favorite restaurants. It was a good day. Had I stayed home, I would have paid myself no money at all in exchange for much more labor, including cleaning house and cooking. It was a good day.