How often do people cancel shops when on a route?

I just feel like one mistake can make you miss a shop or two. I had a shop this weekend for a gas station on a turnpike and didn't realize it. The address was normal and not a typical highway address. Google Maps had me directed to the road behind the property which had a locked gate. Getting on and off the highway cost me an extra hour plus $0.70 toll, lol. A few other time delayers that day and I missed a shop at the end of the day.

How often do people cancel shops when on a route? How much extra time do you give yourself when on a route?

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More About Cancelling Assignments

Best not to cancel at all, reschedule if possible, and always allow extra time, know where you are going ahead of time, call the location if you have to find out where they are located. Can't depend on Google Maps or any maps.

Was that near Albany? I got tricked by one like that!

@Flyy1220 wrote:

How often do people cancel shops when on a route? How much extra time do you give yourself when on a route?

This is the dilemma. Some people max out their schedules and become regular flakes with repeated cancellations. Others limit their earning capacity but retain good standards of reliability with limited cancellations.

Only you can decide what kind of person / shopper you want to be.

Be warned that gas stations and FF along the NJ Turnpike often have street addresses which lead to a locked gate. There are subtle clues, but I always look at a map and use Google Street View.

Shopping Southeast Pennsylvania, Delaware above the canal, and South Jersey since 2008

Thank you for the tips. I don't often cancel shops, but mistakes like those kill me sometimes.

I give myself two extra hours. I've often needed it too. You never know when you will be sitting on the interstate with a wreck up ahead of you, or some other kind of delay will happen.

I very, very rarely cancel shops. I've done it 5 tiimes I can remember out of several thousand shops. I will stay an extra night or make an extra trip if needed. Most of my shops are done near project deadlines, and I don't want to be remembered by schedulers or project managers as the shopper who put them in a bind. I might be more a little more lax if I did shops at the beginning of a shopping period, and it were no big deal to find another shopper. But even then I would try to avoid it.

Same for me. Even if it costs me money I don’t want to be known to schedulers I am someone they can’t count on last minute.

Reschedule, reschedule, reschedule. And apologize.

The only times I have cancelled shops is when I have found, after reading the guidelines either that I am the wrong person for an assignment or the shop is not doable, in an honest way, by anyone. In the former, I always to find a fellow shopper to suggest to the MSC. I shop two metropolitan areas several 100s miles from one another.

During my very first day route, I am not an overnight person, I scheduled a lunch shop to save a few dollars. That act, as I was running late, caused me to drive an unnecessary 100+ miles the following day to complete the work. That was the last time I ever accepted any jobs, with such a restricted window, in the middle of a route.

Learned that the hard way myself!

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

@shopperbob wrote:

During my very first day route, I am not an overnight person, I scheduled a lunch shop to save a few dollars. That act, as I was running late, caused me to drive an unnecessary 100+ miles the following day to complete the work. That was the last time I ever accepted any jobs, with such a restricted window, in the middle of a route.

I am so glad that I am not the only one who would do that before canceling. I count it as a learning experience. It has made me sharper.

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How often do people cancel shops when on a route?

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