@dmm316 wrote:

The furniture shop at the store closest to me was taken almost immediately for no fee. The regular store shop sat for about a week and was finally given a $5.00 bonus, after which it was taken. Personally I won't take them until they offer at least $15.00. If others want to take them for less, more power to them.

The furniture shops at the two locations closest to me were taken. i can't believe it. People must really be desperate to shop. I'd sooner do the $10-12 USPS shops.

I agreed to drive over to my docs office to pick something up.They suggested it would not be worth it as I could just order it on amazon for $20. My response: I am not doing much on a daily basis so a trip over there and back might be a welcome diversion from the humdrum of home with the occasional grocery or cvs run. And my car would love driving further than .06 miles to the store and back. So this thread got me thinking..many of us have been staying home in our houses day after day. I bet some shoppers would take these non paying shops just for an excuse for something to do, get out of the house and give the car a drive. Shoppers not willing to shop big time yet but maybe to do a job or two here and there . Not me though. I would rather wander around for free with no report to write.

Up to $18 plus reimbursement here. (My make an offer for more was rejected.) I’ve never done one and can’t figure out if the shop is furniture or not. If carrying around a bulky item for 15 minutes is required I’ll probably pass since I can make more at a 5 Guys without that hassle.

Picked one up with a $10 fee here because I was going to be two blocks away anyhow.

@NinS wrote:

Up to $18 plus reimbursement here. (My make an offer for more was rejected.) I’ve never done one and can’t figure out if the shop is furniture or not. If carrying around a bulky item for 15 minutes is required I’ll probably pass since I can make more at a 5 Guys without that hassle.

The bulky item can be lightweight, like a laundry basket or oversized pillow.

I did an Instacart batch and a shop at the same time. Essentially Instacart/the customer and the MSC paid me to do some shopping!

Thanks Koko. I was thinking it had to be like a mini fridge haha. I self-assigned an $18 one and boy the questionnaire is short.

But wait. Is it bgriffin who usually steps in to remind us that we do not know the particulars of each shopper payment? Perhaps some of those "people" talked to schedulers or someone) and received at least a wee fee?

Good point SEL. A scheduler called me for a $0 fee burger shop that was on the board. He gave it to me for my usual bonus.

I got offered a cart for the pillow I was carrying around!

WOW! I have NEVER been offered a cart ANYTIME I did that shop!! That store must have thoughtful employees!!

@shoptastic wrote:

ii.) I mentioned this in another thread, but I wonder if MSCs are desperate. They are small businesses and many did not get PPP loans.

Many MSCs are small businesses, a great many are micro businesses. However, there are some which are global mega businesses with revenues in the billions (not millions). The MSC which does Big Lots, however, reported 2019 revenue as only $75 million -- not as large, but certainly not a micro business.

$5 coupon is not bad if you shop at Big Lots already. Just like reading a book for $6, it is all in the way you look at things.

I always carried a pillow.

@teriraia wrote:

I always carried a pillow.

And I've never had to carry it more than 2 minutes tops. EVERYbody there seems to jump on you right away and offer a basket.

There's a Big Lots credit app shop on the board now for $9. You don't apply, you just pick out something expensive and see if they pitch you.

You can get a $5 coupon by being a rewards member or using the Retail Me Not app. If the MSC is not going to offer a fee, make the reimbursement worth doing the shop.

Prior to COVID, I did the furniture shop quarterly and bought TP. It ate into my fee by $0.25. To do the same shop that will cost me money?

Nope!

@breestjon wrote:

$5 coupon is not bad if you shop at Big Lots already. Just like reading a book for $6, it is all in the way you look at things.

We Had one for $10 the other day but it is gone now.

@roflwofl wrote:

@teriraia wrote:

I always carried a pillow.

And I've never had to carry it more than 2 minutes tops. EVERYbody there seems to jump on you right away and offer a basket.

You have a better BL than I do. At my store, the employees never offer help. I walked around for the maximum time last time I did the shop and was never offered assistance. Exactly what I expected based on my previous visits to this location.

@MisterBill wrote:

@roflwofl wrote:

@teriraia wrote:

I always carried a pillow.

And I've never had to carry it more than 2 minutes tops. EVERYbody there seems to jump on you right away and offer a basket.

You have a better BL than I do. At my store, the employees never offer help. I walked around for the maximum time last time I did the shop and was never offered assistance. Exactly what I expected based on my previous visits to this location.

Yeah, I did my fourth one today, and in a different state than where I usually work. I am 0-for-4 in being offered a cart, hasn't happened once.

The only shop I have ever done there is the furniture shop. Back when I first started doing mystery shopping I would take a job with no fee at a burger joint that was getting smashed. The burger was OK but not great. That was for a different company last I saw before the shutdown they were with these guys. I really miss the good ole days $60 to $80 for a gas station audit, $15 for a burger drive-through, and $30 for a drive in, $15 for a sandwich at the roast beef place. They did not even have the German grocery store shops then.

$15 plus $5 today for the regular, not furniture shop.

@2stepps wrote:

The only shop I have ever done there is the furniture shop. Back when I first started doing mystery shopping I would take a job with no fee at a burger joint that was getting smashed. The burger was OK but not great.

The grilled and fried chicken sandwiches at that chain are very good. Sadly, after they got sold a year or so ago, they took a bunch of veggie add-ons off their menu. Their fries are also very good, although much different than FG.

The MSC NEVER learns. They're trying again to do the bulky item shop in my area for no fee. In a pig's eye.

When the MSC was offering fees, I didn't take any as I don't do charity shops and at the fees they offered they were just that. Now they are really just that.

I understand the supply and demand argument - that some bottom feeders will take the shops. The MSC must not care that its reputation is tarnished by accepting feeless work as valuable to it and to its client. But then again, the MSC is known for quantitative reporting with little or no qualitative component. The result, of course, is data that is worthless to any person who cares to know about what is happening on the floor, but valued by MBA types that do not value the business beyond numbers.

@KokoBWare wrote:

The MSC NEVER learns. They're trying again to do the bulky item shop in my area for no fee. In a pig's eye.

They figure they can put them out there with no fee and figure that some suckers will take a few. Then they raise the price for the rest of them to try to entice others to take them for sub-standard fees before finally raising them to a price worth doing them for. You can say the same thing about their FG pricing. Obviously it works for them.

The time spent filling in the survey is not worth whatever $5 buys at Big Lots. This is abominable.

Exactly! Even if a shopper works for coupons, this isn't worth the gas, commute, report and time.

@Rousseau wrote:

I understand the supply and demand argument - that some bottom feeders will take the shops. The MSC must not care that its reputation is tarnished by accepting feeless work as valuable to it and to its client. But then again, the MSC is known for quantitative reporting with little or no qualitative component. The result, of course, is data that is worthless to any person who cares to know about what is happening on the floor, but valued by MBA types that do not value the business beyond numbers.

Are you sure the quantitative data is not valuable?

"Big data" and it's use in analytics has sort of become the new, indispensable tool for companies trying to track workplace performance and conditions and find areas of weakness they can improve on, find things a company does well, and even illuminate connections not previously even thought about (as sophisticated A.I. in analytics can crunch numbers and make connections at a much faster pace and larger scale than the human mind can process).

I think the big limitations for us humans is that we cannot see everything happening and remember it all at once and also come up with all the connections there are between things (at least, not at a fast pace). A manager at Texas Roadhouse, who works five days a week, but can only be in one place physically at a time (say the dining room vs. the hostess stand area vs. the kitchen) and whose mind is only focused on so many things at once, will only observe so much. And that manager might see x, y, or z, but not make connections between it and a, b, and c happening the same night. Repeat that over one month and there is even more stuff our minds cannot process and remember.

I think there is value to both human observation with it's intuitiveness and ability to creatively imagine things a certain way (possibly that analytics cannot) and instantly/creatively solve things in a business with a human touch behind it AND the power of analytics for a company. When we gather all sorts of data points for a business on our shops (server greeting speed, upselling frequency - particularly of a specific server, food delivery speed, etc.) that can be number crunched in high volume and large scale that our minds cannot do, you can possibly get a better precision of measurements and also discover new connections of variables in a business. You do lose some "humanness" to the analysis, but I tend to think the two complement each other, instead of one being more dominant than the other.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2020 11:20AM by shoptastic.

@shoptastic wrote:

Are you sure the quantitative data is not valuable?

"Big data" and it's use in analytics has sort of become the new, indispensable tool for companies trying to track workplace performance and conditions and find areas of weakness they can improve on, find things a company does well, and even illuminate connections not previously even thought about (as sophisticated A.I. in analytics can crunch numbers and make connections at a much faster pace and larger scale than the human mind can process).[/quote]

I wholeheartedly believe that quantitative data is near useless. Just because it is the norm does not make it good. Good management knows that only in-person observation can give a meaningful understanding of an employee's drive, empathy, and desire to go the extra mile both for the customer and the company. But then, I do not believe that any mega business can be good.