The pre-tip wages of servers and supermarket chain CEOs are "the same?"

@SoCalMama wrote:

It’s the same as when a shopper doesn’t leave a decent tip for the server because the shop won’t cover it.

The ones I'm seeing are almost all scheduled before I can click the link! They are apparently VERY popular in my area!

eCommerce shops are popular here, too, and you have to be quick on the trigger to snare one. I took one today for curbside pickup tomorrow but that location does not have curbside pickup. Emailed scheduler to find out if I just report as a "cannot complete" shop.

I did another one last week and I only needed a few items so filled in the balance or the order with things like t. paper, kleenex, etc. No need to buy anything you don't need or can't use. And I would have given the meat to someone (friend, neighbor) unless you needed the refunded money.

Yeah! There's always non perishable foods you can stock up on. I bought cereal. I didn't get canned foods, but those are always good! especially spaghetti sauce, canned beans, veggies...

hopefully the meat was sent to one of those animal sanctuaries. (i watched Tiger King on Netflix earlier this summer and one thing i remembered was that a lot of "expired" or close to expiring meat from walmart went to the sanctuary for the lions and tigers.

@plmccut wrote:

I did another one last week and I only needed a few items so filled in the balance or the order with things like t. paper, kleenex, etc. No need to buy anything you don't need or can't use. And I would have given the meat to someone (friend, neighbor) unless you needed the refunded money.

The store I did the shop for throws returns in the trash. Good thing because the meat was sitting in my car for over 8 hours.

@chiffon cupcakes wrote:

Yeah! There's always non perishable foods you can stock up on. I bought cereal. I didn't get canned foods, but those are always good! especially spaghetti sauce, canned beans, veggies...

hopefully the meat was sent to one of those animal sanctuaries. (i watched Tiger King on Netflix earlier this summer and one thing i remembered was that a lot of "expired" or close to expiring meat from walmart went to the sanctuary for the lions and tigers.

@HonnyBrown how did you know that the store was using a 3rd party delivery service? Did it say that somewhere. I am looking at a delivery shop and I want to make sure I don't make that mistake.

This sounds like something I would be interested in doing. How do these work? And since I didn't see a client or MSC listed would someone share the MSC. Thank you.

I have been shopping for years and have never wasted any food. Of course my diet gets off course sometimes. If a shop requires something i do not eat I contact a friend before hand and they are glad to take that food off my hands. Was the meat required? If not canned goods or paper products could go back on the shelf depending on the store.

Chiffon, the general rule with these shops is that if the official store website has a delivery or pickup option that is "powered by" a third-party that's OK, but you can't go straight to a third party and have them deliver. The scheduler is very responsive if you have any questions about whether a specific scenario qualifies.

sandyf, that's very impressive. I certainly try to avoid waste as well, but no one wants my old Five Guys fries and if I ate them all I'd be in a lot of trouble.

My final thought about the food waste thread: The punishment would surely fit the crime if the shopper ended up returning the items at customer service right behind a shopper doing a Western Union shop. Today I sure had some real angry looks from those in the growing line while the harried supermarket employee tried to figure out how to cancel my transfer.

I didn't know until checkout.

@chiffon cupcakes wrote:

@HonnyBrown how did you know that the store was using a 3rd party delivery service? Did it say that somewhere. I am looking at a delivery shop and I want to make sure I don't make that mistake.

Last week I picked one up for curb side pick up (Non groceries related).

I just picked one up for home delivery tomorrow.. So I will see how that goes

Has anyone done one for delivery using Instacart? I read somewhere that their delivery fee is high?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2020 03:31AM by plmccut.

Speak for yourself. I absolutely totally HATE shopping.

I hated it before I started mystery shopping.

I especially dislike that phenomenon known as "window shopping".



And while I have sold on-line, I don't buy on-line.



quote=Reflex]
Sometimes it happens that we do not get our delivery on time and for this so many reasons are responsible, sometimes, the time factor, sometimes climatic condition or pandemic situation, but this is also true that it is e-commerce website who play a big role in reaching to us apart from all obstacles. We all love shopping and doing online shopping is one of the comfortable and easiest ways of it.[/quote]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/17/2020 04:47AM by ceasesmith.

The STORE tracked your CAR?

YIKES!!

(confirmed paranoid here)

@NinS wrote:

At two locations yesterday the store tracked my car via their app so when I pulled into the parking lot the associate was standing there with my groceries.

Unfortunately another location has a $30 pickup min (and the place is so overpriced it's not worth it) so I'll have to cancel.

I will say that the scheduler for this program is exceedingly responsive, replying to all my questions and requests within seconds, even on nights/weekends.

Yes. The grocery store shop that was rejected was via Instacart. The fees for Instacart alone were over $10.

I also used to shop for Instacart. I didn't know how much they charged, but they appeared to be a good service. The assignments did not stay on the boards for long.

@plmccut wrote:

Has anyone done one for delivery using Instacart? I read somewhere that their delivery fee is high?

I wouldn't do the Instacart ones without reimbursement for delivery fees.

I just did a delivery via Instacart. The shop reimbursement is $10 so I didn’t order a lot. Delivery is FREE but the service charge is $2 and the drivers tip is $2. All in all that’s pretty good for a $14 job fee and $10 reimbursement for not having to leave the house.

Instacart for the shop that I did had a $35 minimum, hence the huge meat order.

ETA: I asked the scheduler to revisit my rejected shop. I had the screenshots to show that the delivery was via the grocery store and not Instacart.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2020 01:03AM by HonnyBrown.

Honny, you are right to push back on the rejection. I easily did a dozen of these shops that originated with the store website or app and was "powered by Instacart." Even with curbside pickup ordered on the store website there were instances where the person who brought the bags to my store was wearing Instacart or some other third-party apparel. All of those jobs were approved without issue.

These have to have an artificial limitation — I just happened to luck out and catch the initial e-mail ping when these dropped for the coffee stores... I grabbed 7 of them based on just the merchant and reimbursement before they disappeared. Also got a couple of the red stores and a grocery store. 4 of the coffee stores were inside other grocery stores — you can’t order online and pick up at those locations so those were simple... click “no” and explain why. Accepted with pay with no issue.

That said — they’ve sent follow up emails with bonuses for the same shops — and when I click through they are still all taken.

So I’m not sure why they would limit the number of shoppers when it appears they still need these done since they’ve supposedly reposted them with a larger fee. I would seriously take a whole day and do these if I could — would sure beat the usual burger shops for food.

I’d hit up a scheduler and ask but that MSP seems to be pretty bad about responding...

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2020 02:49PM by ngbmediashop.

The scheduler has always responded to my emails quickly. This evening, I sent her an email letting her know the my formerly rejected shop was now revised. I got her out of office auto response. She responded shortly after that.

yes, I found this scheduler to be quite responsive.

Anyone else finding these things to be pure disorganization on the part of the MSC? First, I took an in-store pickup shop at a specific supermarket location, then had to cancel when it turned out the location doesn't offer in-store pickup.

Then I took one at a well-known coffee chain. My confirmation screen on the website didn't show the purchase price of the order, just acknowledged that I had ordered. I took the screen shot anyway. My email confirmation didn't have the order price either .... just to make things more screwy, you had to create a reloading "e card" and use the funds in your "e card" to make the purchase. My confirmation email showed only the amount I had loaded on my "e card" so I took a screen shot of that and submitted it.

After letting my report sit without action for several days, the MSC just contacted me wanting a photo of the actual order price. Well I'd be glad to give it to you if I'd actually been sent one, but I wasn't. So I just sent the scheduler an email explaining my situation. We'll see.

Just to top it all off, I took another one for the supermarket chain, this one a delivery shop at a different location. Once again, the confirmation screen on the website didn't show the total price for the order. The email confirmation did, however, so I took a screen shot of that. The questionnaire wants a photo of the website confirmation WITH PRICE and another one of the confirmation email. Except the website confirmation DIDN'T HAVE THE PRICE. So I submitted the email shot with price twice, while I've saved the "priceless" website confirmation in case they want it. Again, we'll see.

It seems like this MSC has no earthly idea how their clients operate online and is just tossing us into the deep end to try to figure out this mess for ourselves. I'm about done with these ecommerce shops, not worth the stress.

I agree with you on the type would be an asset if it was in the title. It is in the comment section, but it is still a lot of clicking to see if it will work for you and then one that might is already gone off the board.

@KokoBWare wrote:

Then I took one at a well-known coffee chain. My confirmation screen on the website didn't show the purchase price of the order, just acknowledged that I had ordered. I took the screen shot anyway. My email confirmation didn't have the order price either .... just to make things more screwy, you had to create a reloading "e card" and use the funds in your "e card" to make the purchase. My confirmation email showed only the amount I had loaded on my "e card" so I took a screen shot of that and submitted it.

If it's the West Coast coffee chain, then when you use the app, you can see the order amount. I'm 100% sure of that. I used to order from there and submit receipts for an MSC that gave me a per diem allowance.

It's chaotic to say the least. It seems that each type of shop had different requirements. My grocery delivery required a photo of my package. I took screenshots of every stage just to be safe.

@KokoBWare wrote:

Anyone else finding these things to be pure disorganization on the part of the MSC? First, I took an in-store pickup shop at a specific supermarket location, then had to cancel when it turned out the location doesn't offer in-store pickup.

Then I took one at a well-known coffee chain. My confirmation screen on the website didn't show the purchase price of the order, just acknowledged that I had ordered. I took the screen shot anyway. My email confirmation didn't have the order price either .... just to make things more screwy, you had to create a reloading "e card" and use the funds in your "e card" to make the purchase. My confirmation email showed only the amount I had loaded on my "e card" so I took a screen shot of that and submitted it.

After letting my report sit without action for several days, the MSC just contacted me wanting a photo of the actual order price. Well I'd be glad to give it to you if I'd actually been sent one, but I wasn't. So I just sent the scheduler an email explaining my situation. We'll see.

Just to top it all off, I took another one for the supermarket chain, this one a delivery shop at a different location. Once again, the confirmation screen on the website didn't show the total price for the order. The email confirmation did, however, so I took a screen shot of that. The questionnaire wants a photo of the website confirmation WITH PRICE and another one of the confirmation email. Except the website confirmation DIDN'T HAVE THE PRICE. So I submitted the email shot with price twice, while I've saved the "priceless" website confirmation in case they want it. Again, we'll see.

It seems like this MSC has no earthly idea how their clients operate online and is just tossing us into the deep end to try to figure out this mess for ourselves. I'm about done with these ecommerce shops, not worth the stress.

@SoCalMama wrote:

@KokoBWare wrote:

Then I took one at a well-known coffee chain. My confirmation screen on the website didn't show the purchase price of the order, just acknowledged that I had ordered. I took the screen shot anyway. My email confirmation didn't have the order price either .... just to make things more screwy, you had to create a reloading "e card" and use the funds in your "e card" to make the purchase. My confirmation email showed only the amount I had loaded on my "e card" so I took a screen shot of that and submitted it.

If it's the West Coast coffee chain, then when you use the app, you can see the order amount. I'm 100% sure of that. I used to order from there and submit receipts for an MSC that gave me a per diem allowance.

It's based on the West Coast but its locations are everywhere and I mean everywhere. The one that takes its name from a character in Moby Dick. And I used the website, not the app.

Edit: I just checked and they accepted the report overnight. Phew. Now we'll see what goes on with the supermarket one.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2020 11:55AM by KokoBWare.

Ah, but these aren’t the MSC’s clients. It’s a study. Perhaps sanctioned by one of the businesses or perhaps just to create some data to sell. So while annoying it’s not surprising they don’t know whether every location offers every type of pickup/delivery/curbside option.

I was paid for my shop that was rejected.