Hello, im new to mystery shopping. I need advice on travel pay. Over the last week i have got 2 emails from a msc that wants me to do a route of shops. Now i know virtually nothing about this process. How far from home is expected? I would think within 2 hrs. These places are tiny towns in the middle of no where. So i have said i can do a route and asked if there is travel pay, she has responded yes she can add travel pay and how much do i need? I have no idea what to ask for. Help pls!!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2019 03:50AM by Pita34.

You figure up how much travel will cost you, add what is a reasonable fee for your time, and that's what you ask for. There's a lot to consider -- it's a lot easier to drive 200 miles and have 5 shops all right together, than to zigzag from shop to shop and end up driving a lot more than 200 miles.

If you ask for too much, they may make a counter offer.

When you e-mail her, you can always say something like "I do have a little negotiating room" -- but many shoppers think that's literally inviting them to make a lower counter-offer.

Route shopping is HARD. There's absolutely nothing wrong with telling them you're new, and hesitant to take on a project that you feel incompetent for at this point.

How many shops? What types of shop? Will they give you an extension on the reporting deadline? Or are you able to do your reports "in the field"? I personally hate having a long day of driving, then facing hours of reporting when I finally get home. Can you do a "mini-route" first, just to see if you can do the longer one?

And welcome to the forum.

(You can read Jacob's free e-book about route shopping, and you can use the search function above to find threads on route shopping.)

I use a very simple formula depending on how long the route is. Less than a day it's an easy formula.

$x - Mileage (miles driven times actual cost of vehicle ownership)
$y - Time (total hours for driving, shopping, and reporting times what I want to make per hour)
$z - $x+$y

So let's say your car costs you $.25 per mile of travel and you want to make $20 an hour. Your route is 400 miles total and it will take you 10 hours to drive, shop and report. In that instance you would need your total shop fee to be $100 for mileage plus $200 for your time. You would ask for $300 total (fee plus travel) for all of the shops. (hint, these are the numbers I use)

For overnight travel the total shop fees minus the total expenses has to equal my target goal for per day income on travel.

So let's say it's a 1000 mile trip that will take 3 whole days. Your total expenses would be mileage ($250), hotels (I use $115 a night so $230), and other expenses (food, tolls, random things, I use $35 per day so $105) for a total of $585). I have a daily goal of $250 in profit so I would need $750 for that. For that route you would need to ask for $1335 total.

That's just the formula I use, I'm sure some people have others. Those are also the numbers I use, that does not mean they should be the ones you use. Perhaps your car is a gas guzzling SUV that breaks down every 3 days, you would need more. Perhaps you need to make $75 an hour, or $5 an hour.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/17/2019 04:36AM by bgriffin.

Great advice in both comments. All I would add is that if you cannot or don't want to do the reports in the field, ask for a little extra time for reporting. If they are narrative heavy or photo heavy reports you might want to ask for at least 24 hours after you return home.

I would add that the "cost of driving" is not just gas money. The IRS mileage rate this year is $0.58 per mile and that includes depreciation, tires, oil changes, insurance, repairs, etc. I personally use the IRS mileage rate in as much as that is what I deduct on Schedule C. Tolls and parking are in addition to the IRS mileage rate on Schedule C, so don't forget them either.

@myst4au wrote:

I would add that the "cost of driving" is not just gas money. The IRS mileage rate this year is $0.58 per mile and that includes depreciation, tires, oil changes, insurance, repairs, etc. I personally use the IRS mileage rate in as much as that is what I deduct on Schedule C. Tolls and parking are in addition to the IRS mileage rate on Schedule C, so don't forget them either.

Or another option is to figure your actual cost of driving and use that number. I use gas, expected repairs and maintenance, and replacement cost per mile. For my car that equates to fairly close to $.25 per mile.

Make sure that if these are "photo heavy reports" you take way more pictures then you actually need to have, because there is nothing worse than being hundreds of miles away from home and miss a photo and then have to drive back to take the photo or forfeit the pay, because you know that it's not financially worth it to drive all the way back for a photo.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2019 11:04PM by piebaby.

I have on two different occasions forgotten to get a photo that was needed on an announced audit and I called the store and asked if they could take the picture and send it to me via text or email. Luckily they both came through for me. And on a third one, I did not even bother. Now I make sure that I get a picture of everything.

@piebaby wrote:

Make sure that if these are "photo heavy reports" you take way more pictures then you actually need to have, because there is nothing worse than being hundreds of miles away from home and miss a photo and then have to drive back to take the photo or forfeit the pay, because you know that it's not financially worth it to drive all the way back for a photo.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/2019 04:53PM by 2stepps.

Rough estimate is a dollar per mile. More if there are tolls, overnight, etc. I charge less for my two favorite schedulers because they make it up in other ways.

TMI