@Book wrote:
As recently indicated by a scheduler in another thread, many assignments get 5 or 6 people applying for them. Do you expect them to give the assignment to someone asking for a $10 bonus or one of the other 5 guys?
Asking for bonuses is feasible in only a small percentage of assignments. If you live in a market with few rival shoppers you have more bonus opportunities. Or if you don’t mind doing unpopular assignments which nobody else wants to do.
Some people don’t have the luxury of turning down work. They have a choice - do the shop at the advertised rate or not at all. I guess you are a part time shopper so you can easily refuse work. The reality is that full time shoppers have less scope for rejecting work even if they believe that the assignment warrants a higher fee.
@BirdyC wrote:
I disagree that asking for a bonus isn't feasible in many cases.
@Book wrote:
@BirdyC wrote:
I disagree that asking for a bonus isn't feasible in many cases.
In which cases would you ask for a bonus?
.@BirdyC wrote:
I ask for a bonus, for example, when: I've done the shop before and I know it's more time-consuming than we're led to believe; it's toward the end of the month and there are still many of the same shops still on the board (leading me to believe they're not "fun & easy" ), without bonuses or with paltry ones; when the shop is out of my normal geographical area; when MarketForce calls and needs a shop done; when it's a bank inquiry and base pay is less than $20 or $25; when it's the last day or two before the deadline, and I can do the shop but have to re-arrange my schedule; and so on.
.@walesmaven wrote:
Book,
Sunnydays is correct and there is plenty of evidence to support the existence of shoppers who will "cubrstone" shops. (i.e., sit at the curb and create a false report, instead of traveling to do the shop.) .
@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?
@Shop-et-al wrote:
Teachers were giving good grades equally to papers that were written well and those from which they could glean the gist of what the student was saying. ... I was told not to work with a student who did not utilize the English language well. I was informed that the student would never get anywhere because of their language skills. Fast forward to 'Hmm'. The student was given a sports scholarship (they actually participated in the sport prior to college) and obtained a college degree from a respected school. .
@SoCalMama wrote:
Honestly, until I became an editor, I would not have believed 1-10 existed. Then, the reports came in for editing. I quickly realized that my reports were some of the best. It’s pretty sad.
@wanderer wrote:
That’s odd. We have to have all narratives converted to paragraphs-even the one line things that make sense not to. That’s time consuming for me. Example: “No manager seen” to: “I did not see a manager.” Or, “There was no manager visible during our shop.” Sometimes, a mix of writing is the clearest.
@wanderer wrote:
I don’t understand either, shoppers that get bent out of shape for the following when I either ask them to correct or just remind them for future shops:
1. They leave off a picture and I ask for one
2. They take a picture of their drink instead of their food
3. They include themselves in the picture (happens more than you’d think)
4. They don’t fully answer the questions. If it says you need 500 characters, 498 won’t do. It gets kicked back as incomplete.
5. If you are going to use direct quotes, learn the proper punctuation. And if there is only a summary asked for, don’t stress yourself out typing dialogue. It’s more work than you need to do.
6. Please run spell check
7. Even better, use something like Grammarly to edit as you type. It can be invaluable.
8. Keep your one line answers simple and to the point and in complete sentences with periods at the end.
9. Submit no receipt or receipts that you cannot actually read.
10. Remember, I get paid only $3 to read and correct your report. I have to verify location, time, shop instructions, the pictures facing the right direction and being clear, check and see if you have listed everything you ordered, make sure that in your narrative you have answered all the “negative” responses and make certain your timings match up with all of your other answers. This is on top of general editing for spelling, the sentences making sense and proper punctuation checks. If there’s a problem, it can take me another 2-3 minutes to write that up for you so you can fix it if I return it or for you to know for future shops (if I’m able to fix it without your input). In addition, I have to record anything I’ve set to be fixed so I can follow up on when it is completed by the shopper. And, finally, I also have to alert the editor in charge what’s going on with anything else I or the shopper cannot fix. Some shops have taken me over an hour when all this is counted.
Editing is a thankless job, but I’m doing it to get practice and have something more recent on my resume to be able to jump into something a lot more profitable for my time spent. Plus, it was a great gig while I was housebound for a period of time.
@ShopperFun99 wrote:
$3 per report? Why would you ever take a job like that?
We, shoppers have our beef too. What about waiting eight (8) days and checking emails with no response or complaint about a report. Then.....suddenly....URGENT! NEED RESPONSE BY END OF DAY TODAY! with 50 questions and complaints. Is this fair to the busy shopper? Many of us have a regular job and family.
@JASFLALMT wrote:
...but 50 questions has got to be an exaggeration!!! But if not, and if you are getting 50 questions about your report, SF99, you definitely need to think your reporting strategy.