Barnes and Noble

Made a insane offer for one of them. It was accepted :-)

Reading the guidelines, I understand why this shop is on a lot of people's ten foot pole list. How much time should I allow to complete it?

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. Eleanor Roosevelt

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An hour at most.
I am doing one today too. I threw out a big offer as well.

I didn't make an insane offer, only $35. But I was going to be in the area anyway.

How much time? The last one I did was 26 minutes on site. I could have been out in less time, but I got side-tracked and browsed a bit.

Curious what qualifies as an insane offer, LOL.

I spent a little over an hour for $5

Mine is upstairs and downstairs. I set my timer for 15 minutes, 6 minutes for the cafe unless the are busy and 10 minutes for the rest of it. You don't have to talk story with everyone, just get the info and whether or not the various areas interacted with you. The report takes a little bit longer than the usual from this company, about the same as the 5 Guys so save some time for that. Go early so the lines aren't crazy. They have bookmarks at the register that are fairly inexpensive. And you can take a pic of the receipt and turn around and return whatever you buy, except the coffee of course.

Geez...I requested it for $15 and got shot down. I guess they knew there was a bigger sucker in my area who would take the job for less, and they were right since it's not on the board today.

Update
30 minutes total
No cafe to do

Interesting that B&N is now shopped....I'll have to see if they have any in Chicago or not.

Silver certified (since 2009) and willing to do shops all around the greater Chicago, NW Indiana, and Southern Wisconsin areas (including airports!.

May I ask, what company shops Barnes & Noble?

I am relatively new, what is an insane offer?

I thought my offer was high, but you have me beat by a little bit. I didn't have a track record of completing the shops, though, and was afraid they'd ignore my offer. Next time watch out, though :-)

@JASFLALMT wrote:

I didn't make an insane offer, only $35. But I was going to be in the area anyway.

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. Eleanor Roosevelt

BlueSkye, our Independent Contractor Agreements keep us from pairing up MSCs and their clients. I can tell you, though, that the MSC is a large national one that is the subject of many discussions here on the board.

@BlueSkye wrote:

May I ask, what company shops Barnes & Noble?

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. Eleanor Roosevelt

Okay, insane to me is $100, LOL. Believe it or not, several years ago (before they had make an offer) if they were desperate a scheduler would pay that much and I heard of a few others who got more ($125). They tightened the purse strings awhile back. Lately they have been more generous at times with the Make an Offer. I did a Sear Audit a few weeks ago for $80 and this week I am doing four shops all ranging from $24-$35 from the Make an Offer option...none of which are more than 15 miles away. I picked up a couple of small shops at base rate for May (all within 5 miles of my house) just to appease them.

BlueSkye, welcome to the forum. Like Kathy wrote, we aren't allowed to link the client and the MSC in the same thread. We all signed an IC agreement with the MSC that is legally binding and it's also against the rules of this forum. But, if you look below there is a link to an "Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies" and when you click on the link, you will see a short list of the 15 most discussed companies. The MSC who does Barnes and Nobles is in that list.

Thanks! that works, have a nice week shopping.

I actually forgot about the confidentiality agreement last nite. Yikes, thank everyone for reminding me! I am signed up with most of the top companies I found on the forum, will keep going down the list. Nice week ya'll.

In the past the only offers I've had accepted were only a couple of dollars over the base pay. What I got for this shop was my personal best from the MSC. Now I know I can aim much higher :-)

@JASFLALMT wrote:

Okay, insane to me is $100, LOL. Believe it or not, several years ago (before they had make an offer) if they were desperate a scheduler would pay that much and I heard of a few others who got more ($125). They tightened the purse strings awhile back. Lately they have been more generous at times with the Make an Offer. I did a Sear Audit a few weeks ago for $80 and this week I am doing four shops all ranging from $24-$35 from the Make an Offer option...none of which are more than 15 miles away. I picked up a couple of small shops at base rate for May (all within 5 miles of my house) just to appease them.

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. Eleanor Roosevelt

I get shot down a lot, too, LOL. Now once you have done a particular shop at a particular location, it's hard to get them to go much higher unless it's deadlining and they are desperate. I have never done the Barnes and Nobles before, I had thought about asking for $50 but figured $35 stood a better chance. There was furniture rental phone call shop that I picked up for $24. The original fee was $8 I think. There were several locations available. I put in a bid of $25 for one location that was was denied. I asked for $24 for another location and was accepted. Hey, who knew $1 was such a big difference!

Yeah, I wondered about that, but if I can get as fast as SoCalMama (or even spicy1) I would be getting a good hourly rate.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

I get shot down a lot, too, LOL. Now once you have done a particular shop at a particular location, it's hard to get them to go much higher unless it's deadlining and they are desperate.

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. Eleanor Roosevelt

You never know what they will take on the make an offer shops. I usually go with at least $5 more or $15 and then I go up depending on how far away the shop is.

Thanks for the tips. I did the shop today with you in mind. Got in and out of there in 34 minutes. I could have shaved several minutes from the time but decided to buy a card and it took some time to find the right one.

@spicy1 wrote:

Mine is upstairs and downstairs. I set my timer for 15 minutes, 6 minutes for the cafe unless the are busy and 10 minutes for the rest of it. You don't have to talk story with everyone, just get the info and whether or not the various areas interacted with you. The report takes a little bit longer than the usual from this company, about the same as the 5 Guys so save some time for that. Go early so the lines aren't crazy. They have bookmarks at the register that are fairly inexpensive. And you can take a pic of the receipt and turn around and return whatever you buy, except the coffee of course.

Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. Eleanor Roosevelt

The highest MAO I've gotten for BAN is $17, and more often than not, that amount is underbid.

I just got two shops, MAO, for different clients. I would classify both as very nice - one is eight times the going rate, the other is about 14 times. Less than 15 miles, both. Check your boards!

It all depends on competition and deadlines.

I was looking for a particular shop on a route (actually I might have been in your area?) last week. What I was looking for wasn't available but I saw TONS of wireless shops with MAO on them. Perhaps we saw the same shops.

There are reasons that a body stays in motion
At the moment only demons come to mind

There are some MAO in my area for cell shops. The locations are CRAP. So, they will need to add way more $ before I will bother asking.

I didn't bite on wireless, only because of distance. But, do they add $$ after publishing them as MAOs?

Yes, they do sometimes if someone doesn't take it. It's a gamble depending on where you live and how many shoppers are in your area. I hold out. A lot.

They approved my offer for $30

I did one of those wireless audits that they say might take 2 hours to do. It was a MAO and I got it for $35. It took 27 minutes.

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