@Shop-et-al wrote:
@LisaSTL wrote:
@Shop-et-al wrote:
Because someone on the internet said that I would be silly and unethical if I did not ask for more money.
No, you said it was unethical to ask for more. I don't know about where you live but here professionals are not in the habit of discounting their fees because the client lives in the same zip code. If you want to value yourself at $5 for 2 hours and I want to value myself at $50 an hour it doesn't make you ethical and me greedy.
This is the basic equation: how much does it cost to complete the shop? The monetary value that you place upon yourself is not necessarily what it costs you to do the shop. It is only what you have decided that you should get for doing the shop. How difficult or time-consuming a shop is depends upon how a shopper configures their schedule and their experience or natural ability to do things. What is easy and therefore might as well be considered as negligible for one shopper might be very difficult for another shopper. This is not an unfavorable comparison of shoppers; it is only an example of how each shopper is unique. The price that a shopper puts upon their own head is just an ego talking unless and until the shopper can back up the numbers with something substantive such as mileage, wear and tear for vehicle or self, un-reimbursed hotel stays, some number and cost of un-reimbursed meals, fuel, and other costs that are unique to a shopper. This is a murky area of mystery shopping that has not been well expressed by me or even by the more talented writers on the forum.
If I were a mercenary soul, I would be compelled to charge a ridiculous sum for "me" based upon experiences, skills, education, etc. That would be absurd because the money would not be commensurate with my experienced difficulty of the shops that I can access and have time to complete. As long as I receive enough money to cover the costs of my mystery shopping endeavors and have a little somethin' somethin' for myself, I have enough. YMMV.
@scorpionshar777 wrote:
I saw the $15 to 20 bonus on Ellis. This week they seem to be sharing bonus $$ I think the person edited the $300 out of the original post but you can still see it when someone replied. I don't think they will inform us of the $300 bonus money.
oxymoron@Jbrz123 wrote:
To be honest, I made up a story saying I was on vacation four hours away and wanted $450 to complete it.
@Kol16 wrote:
I fail to understand one thing, for peanut money, the companies want excellent report and queen's English. Stop nit picking on the English, not everyone will have a fluent English. If the shopper is good and you got all the required info. Move on... cant believe the perfect English fuss these companies do. The pay is peanuts and they want audits to be done like real auditors?
@JASFLALMT wrote:
When I was an editor (with two separate MSCs), if the shop report had all of the necessary information, it was not sent back for further clarification. I edited what I needed to do and moved on, although I did make a vague and generalized comment about grammar/spelling...I certainly never harped on it.
@BirdyC wrote:
But if a shopper performs at higher than a $10/shop level, said shopper should, in my opinion, either ask for a bonus or turn down the job.
@JASFLALMT wrote:
I edited what I needed to do and moved on, although I did make a vague and generalized comment about grammar/spelling...I certainly never harped on it. ]
@Book wrote:
@JASFLALMT wrote:
I edited what I needed to do and moved on, although I did make a vague and generalized comment about grammar/spelling...I certainly never harped on it. ]
This is part of the problem. ‘Vague and generalized’ comments are no good to man nor beast. In most jobs there is some kind of ongoing training. Ideally, editors should be giving feedback to shoppers on how to improve their reports so they don’t continually turn in the same old garbage report after report. Editor’s slapdash attitudes to feedback is part of the problem in the field of MS.
@JASFLALMT wrote:
Most shoppers (like BirdyC) I would just have thanked and honestly, I doubt I would have to change a word.
At $5 a report, after already spending an hour rewriting a report, I don't have another 30 minutes explaining the 25 errors that were in their report, especially when I know that they probably aren't going to learn from it. I don't feel like writing a book. Most editors are not paid by the hour, they are paid by the report. It sucks, but don't blame the editors for crappy payment from MSCs and not being able to "train" shoppers who write crappy
@SunnyDays2 wrote:
I think (some) shoppers enter this field to beat or (cheat) the system. They may have heard it was "easy" to shop and their unscrupulous friends showed them how to fake a shop.
That is why you have wonderful honest shoppers who are dedicated to this profession and you have weak shoppers, who turn in sloppy reports, no receipts, names wrong, descriptions wrong, time's wrong and expect to be paid.
Then you have the low bottom of the barrel shoppers who never do the shops at all, fabricate their reports and have gotten away with it to some degree. Those bottom barrel shoppers are reported to other schedulers and the "notice" is out that they are
@Book wrote:
@BirdyC wrote:
But if a shopper performs at higher than a $10/shop level, said shopper should, in my opinion, either ask for a bonus or turn down the job.
Not realistic. If shoppers turn down jobs because they think they deserve to be paid more based on experience and ability, they might end up with no income at the end of the month.
@BirdyC wrote:
What's not realistic about asking for a bonus? Never any harm in asking. If you're turned down, then the decision is one of what best meets the shopper's needs or wants. Generally, my opinion is that a good shopper should turn down the job if he or she feels the job is worth more in and of itself or worth more because of his/her skills.