I am still pretty new to MSing, but as I read through this forum, I have seen it mentioned or alluded to a few times that some MS companies do not show you shops in your area unless you have completed other shops for them. For instance, I have hard that A Closer Look allegedly will only show pizza shops to new shoppers.

I am signed up with a few companies that never seem to have anything that I consider worthwhile, so I have yet to take any jobs for them. If I could see that they had better jobs in my area that were open to shoppers who have completed x-number of low-paying shops, I would be much more inclined to do the low-paying shops.

I would keep signing up with more companies.

Some companies assign shops to their shoppers with track records, and a lot of shops are assigned that never reach the Job Boards. Sometimes you have to take less desirable shops to build a track record with a company.

I am currently signed up with over 40, and I find that it is more than enough to keep me busy on the weekends, which Is when I can MS. My issue is not that I can't find worthwhile shops with some companies, it's more that a handful of companies I am signed up with seem to not have the quality I would want. I don't know if I should be taking the low-paying jobs in order to be able to have access to the better jobs. Apologies if my initial post was confusing.

@Ksauber wrote:

I am currently signed up with over 40, and I find that it is more than enough to keep me busy on the weekends, which Is when I can MS. My issue is not that I can't find worthwhile shops with some companies, it's more that a handful of companies I am signed up with seem to not have the quality I would want. I don't know if I should be taking the low-paying jobs in order to be able to have access to the better jobs. Apologies if my initial post was confusing.

I know for sure that one company does that. I did not care for any of their shops and didn't do any for a long time. Eventually I decided to do a few. That's when I suddenly saw much better shops.

@AnneAshley wrote:

I know for sure that one company does that. I did not care for any of their shops and didn't do any for a long time. Eventually I decided to do a few. That's when I suddenly saw much better shops.

Good to know. I will have to start doing some of the shops I have been avoiding. Would you mind letting me know which MSC this was and how many shops you had to do to start seeing better ones? As far as I can tell that isn't against forum rules, but if it is, please disregard.

It is not true the A Closer Look only shows Pizza shops to new customers. Most of our shops are available to new shoppers. There are a few clients that require some quality reports before being seen but not many in comparison to the number of shops we have.

Over the years I've had several shops for ACL, not one was dining or pizza.

As to the OP's question, you are working on the assumption there is a set policy in place. While a few, such as Trendsource and Maritz, require successful completion of a specific number of shops before allowing self-assign, I'm not aware they do not show everything available. For off the board shops there may not be a strict policy. For instance, if the MSC is providing test shops to help secure a new client, in all likelihood they are going to look for some of their top shoppers and will evaluate them based on several criteria which may or may not include the total number of shops performed.

Ok, that makes sense. Tnewton2112, that's good to know. I just recently signed up with A Closer Look, so I am glad to know I will be able to see the majority of shops available.

@tnewton2112 wrote:

It is not true the A Closer Look only shows Pizza shops to new customers. Most of our shops are available to new shoppers. There are a few clients that require some quality reports before being seen but not many in comparison to the number of shops we have.

Interesting, as that has not been my experience. Correct me if I am wrong but it is my understanding that ACL has at least 3, and possibly more, ratings. They also have shops that correspond to those ratings. The pizza shop is one that is assigned the lowest rating, although there are definitely other clients that have those ratings. It was explained to me once that the lowest rated shoppers only see about 25% of the available clients, the next sees about 50%, then 75%, with only the very highest rated shoppers seeing all of the available clients. My rating, at times, has been at each level along the scale and that is about what I have seen as well. At one time I had a scheduler tell me I had their highest rating. I have also had a ticked off scheduler drop me to the lowest rating. Based on what I see now I would guess that I have a rating that shows me about 75% of the available clients. I have also seen complaints from shoppers that say they only see the pizza client and perhaps 1 other client in an area and when I look I see about 3 times that number of clients. Based on that information it seems they would have a much lower rating, most likely the lowest. Additionally I have occasionally gotten last minute offers for a client that I know ACL has as I see their sister chains but not them. Which tells me that I do not have the ability to see all clients.

Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps ACL has changed their super secret internal rating system. But I do not believe that is the case.

To the OP. It really depends on the MSC and how they handle it. I am not an expert but I do not believe Sassie or Shopmetrics MSCs have the ability to hide particular shops from particular shoppers. That does not mean those MSCs do not have shops you can't see, it just means it is done differently. Those companies usually offer those shops directly to the shoppers they would like to use. Those are normally referred to as "off the board" projects. There are quite a few companies that use both platforms that have off the board shops. So let's say MegaMSC has the Spacely Sprockets account and they only want to offer those shops to LisaSTL and walesmaven. Those would be offered directly via email, phone, etc. Even after being offered LisaSTL would not be able to log into the MegaMSC sassie and see those shops until they are assigned. Prophet and many of the proprietary job boards do have the ability to hide shops based on a rating.

@bgriffin wrote:

@tnewton2112 wrote:

It is not true the A Closer Look only shows Pizza shops to new customers. Most of our shops are available to new shoppers. There are a few clients that require some quality reports before being seen but not many in comparison to the number of shops we have.

Interesting, as that has not been my experience. Correct me if I am wrong but it is my understanding that ACL has at least 3, and possibly more, ratings. They also have shops that correspond to those ratings. The pizza shop is one that is assigned the lowest rating, although there are definitely other clients that have those ratings. It was explained to me once that the lowest rated shoppers only see about 25% of the available clients, the next sees about 50%, then 75%, with only the very highest rated shoppers seeing all of the available clients. My rating, at times, has been at each level along the scale and that is about what I have seen as well. At one time I had a scheduler tell me I had their highest rating. I have also had a ticked off scheduler drop me to the lowest rating. Based on what I see now I would guess that I have a rating that shows me about 75% of the available clients. I have also seen complaints from shoppers that say they only see the pizza client and perhaps 1 other client in an area and when I look I see about 3 times that number of clients. Based on that information it seems they would have a much lower rating, most likely the lowest. Additionally I have occasionally gotten last minute offers for a client that I know ACL has as I see their sister chains but not them. Which tells me that I do not have the ability to see all clients.

Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps ACL has changed their super secret internal rating system. But I do not believe that is the case.

While there are ratings, and shops to correspond, new shoppers can see the majority of our shops. If you turn in bad reports, your rating can go down and you may see less shops. If you turn in great reports, your rating will go up, allowing you to see a few more shops. On another point, schedulers cannot drop your rating. Editors are the only people who can change your rating because it is solely based on report ratings. I hope this clears up any confusion.

I have completed very few shops for ACL (rotation and convenience) and only see dining shops on their board. Last month I picked up a flaked pizza shop, last week I received an email for a client I assume was new. I believe @bgriffin theory may be correct. The email is for a specific location with others locations listed in the notes. Clicking on the provided link shows the shop but, none of the other locations are listed. After contacting the scheduler I have been assigned multiple locations.

@bgriffin wrote:

To the OP. It really depends on the MSC and how they handle it. I am not an expert but I do not believe Sassie or Shopmetrics MSCs have the ability to hide particular shops from particular shoppers. That does not mean those MSCs do not have shops you can't see, it just means it is done differently. Those companies usually offer those shops directly to the shoppers they would like to use. Those are normally referred to as "off the board" projects. There are quite a few companies that use both platforms that have off the board shops. So let's say MegaMSC has the Spacely Sprockets account and they only want to offer those shops to LisaSTL and walesmaven. Those would be offered directly via email, phone, etc. Even after being offered LisaSTL would not be able to log into the MegaMSC sassie and see those shops until they are assigned. Prophet and many of the proprietary job boards do have the ability to hide shops based on a rating.

You make some excellent points, especially re: SASSIE and Shopmetrics. Companies with proprietary websites can have more control over what information is deployed to which shoppers, and I'm guessing they exercise it.

Although Sassie and Shopmetrics may not have the ability to show different shops to different shoppers, it is, of course, still possible to just not put shops of a particular kind out on the boards. I just found out that three shops for an MSC that I do a ton of shops for are "by invitation only." And, that s not becasue they have higher fees than all of the other shops of their kind. It is becasue only a shopper very experinced with this kind of shops would be wiling to undertake them for the regular fee. With over 500 similar shops under my belt, I see no problem with these three, and a plus becasue they are within a few hundred yards of one another. But if I had only done a dozen or so similar shops, I would have run screamng from the room. A tip of the hat to the manager or scheduler who figured this all out in advance and planned around the potential for shoppers to decline these visits.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2017 02:07PM by walesmaven.

The Source emails me with specific Business Verification jobs in my area..I have a background check and taken the certification for this, so they send these out to those shoppers. I get calls if a grocery is flaked, a please can you run out and do this (no pad), just a favor I do them as I always need food in the house, and they are good to me as well. Jobs they easily schedule go on the board without an email. My other companies email me and i am able to self-assign, while others I check out on my own. KSS never sends an email while ISS does, both are scheduling companies and do things quite differently

You also have to consider that not all shops are in all areas of the country. So it is possible that in your area they do not have much more than "the pizza shops". If it is a company you enjoy working for I would recommend you put in the time to do several of the shops you can accept and and then see if other shops turn up. Many of the ACL shops (and there are many on my job board) are for clients that are either regional, for smaller only in my city chains, or chains that only have locations in select large cities across the country.