Has anyone completed the Home Depot large purchase curbside shop? Thoughts?

Never mind

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2021 10:48PM by audrialyn30.

10 foot pole for me, unless massive bonus.

Thought this might be about the large purchase new shop which says it is a promo. But seems it is not. It pays well for my city but requires you to purchase 12 specific items, do a bunch of very specific other things and then return them all. In my local home depot tracking down 12 items and hoping they are all in stock or in the correct bin when I find them would take forever. Finding a salesperson to help takes even longer.
Anyone try this new shop? Worth it?

@sandyf wrote:

Thought this might be about the large purchase new shop which says it is a promo. But seems it is not. It pays well for my city but requires you to purchase 12 specific items, do a bunch of very specific other things and then return them all. In my local home depot tracking down 12 items and hoping they are all in stock or in the correct bin when I find them would take forever. Finding a salesperson to help takes even longer.
Anyone try this new shop? Worth it?

This is not a new shop in the Southwest. I did several of them before the pandemic. I really liked them but would only do them if I got at least four of them for a route. I developed a system in which I averaged 60-70 minutes for each location, including the return. My system involved about 40 minutes to make a cheat sheet to use for all the shops in that period. I think I did 8 shops at $50 each the last time I did them.

They are hard but the pay is decent, especially with a bonus. They can take 2 hours plus at first, but the more you do, the quicker they get.

These take between 1 hour and 15 minutes and 2 hours depending upon how busy the location is and how long the interactions take. You have to interact with two different employees and wait up to 20 minutes to talk to each of the employees if they are busy with another customer. So, there is up to 40 minutes of waiting just to talk to a person. I will say, however, that it usually wasn't much of a wait. The best thing to do is to use the website to find the location of each item in each store. Once you start doing them, they are not too bad. They pay reasonably well, but doing four or five of them in one day ends up being a pretty exhausting day. I find that it's easiest to just do them on the website on my phone as I go. I've done a ton of these over the past year or so. You just have to be willing to try to steal something and not feel uncomfortable about it if you get caught by the cashier with something hidden inside something else.

The one I saw was not curbside which is what the OP is talking about. Some of you after I posted sound like you are talking about the one I saw. You did have to put one item inside another and place each of the dozen items you are purchasing in a specific place in the cart but there were no interactions other than with the cashier and the return person. There was only one of these listed in 20 mi radius in Los Angeles where there are quite a few Home Depots and it said clearly it was a promo shop. I think my comment threw a second shop into the thread and made it confusing...sorry.

They do have three different types listed. DIY, PRO, and one with neither. I see mainly DIY available with just a few PRO. Maybe you found one of the PRO ones or one with neither?

This particular shop I am talking about was about how exactly the cashier took the items out of the cart...

Sandyf, This sounds similar to the jobs listed two years ago right before the shutdown. I've done a lot of DIY work and know HD stores pretty well which may cloud my judgment. The jobs were very easy. The first one took closer to two hours (had to talk to someone in one department back then) but after that, I could complete them in an hour or less as well as check out what each store had on clearance for my own shopping. Looking online for the location# of the items in each store is the biggest time saver. The cart organization/ cashier monitoring was a bit odd but after the first job was easy. If there is only one job available it's probably worth it for someone that's done HD shops before or knows the stores well. I'm not sure how lucrative it would be for others.

I will look for it next month as that location was not that convenient for me in our terrible traffic. Hopefully they will have it again. I think the pay was okay for one hour but not great. It certainly was not enough for over an hour at the store. I never do the HD shops requiring talking to someone. At my store I have to hunt the entire store to find someone and than wait while they help the customer they are with. At the paint dept on my own time I have waited up to 30 min to be helped. And one time when I went to the return counter I waited over a half hour to be helped there. Sooo..I will see if it sounds worth it.

I have completed both types of jobs, and the PRO scenario was my favorite.

how do i find out how to get home depot shops?

I tried it when they bonused up to $100. Didn't get paid for it. I missed one of the pictures because the associate that was helping me find the tool with the theft controls wouldn't let go of my cart. I took the picture outside after I paid for the things but they said that wasn't acceptable and refused to pay me. I'm not going to continue to be cheated out of money because of people I have no control over.

@Morledzep wrote:

I tried it when they bonused up to $100. Didn't get paid for it. I missed one of the pictures because the associate that was helping me find the tool with the theft controls wouldn't let go of my cart. I took the picture outside after I paid for the things but they said that wasn't acceptable and refused to pay me. I'm not going to continue to be cheated out of money because of people I have no control over.

When I was in the same situation, I told the associate that I forgot something and he can hold the theft control item and I would be back. Then I went around at a back aisle, prepared the cart, took photos and returned. I had the situation happened many times, especially in sketchy areas. I did these shops even during the pandemic, never less than $150 each. The first couple each cycle take forever until you become familiar where the items are located at each department. The more you do the faster they become but usually about 1h each.

Nothing to feel bad about it. If the employee does not catch anything after they tally all items, then you are supposed to tell them. The loss prevention dept trying to train their employees to catch the most usual ways the cashiers miss items. There was an article in the WSJ about HD and loss prevention this month [www.wsj.com]

and further reading for those interested [losspreventionmedia.com]

@thunderdeacon wrote:

These take between 1 hour and 15 minutes and 2 hours depending upon how busy the location is and how long the interactions take. You have to interact with two different employees and wait up to 20 minutes to talk to each of the employees if they are busy with another customer. So, there is up to 40 minutes of waiting just to talk to a person. I will say, however, that it usually wasn't much of a wait. The best thing to do is to use the website to find the location of each item in each store. Once you start doing them, they are not too bad. They pay reasonably well, but doing four or five of them in one day ends up being a pretty exhausting day. I find that it's easiest to just do them on the website on my phone as I go. I've done a ton of these over the past year or so. You just have to be willing to try to steal something and not feel uncomfortable about it if you get caught by the cashier with something hidden inside something else.

Sounds very uncomfortable with the "theft" scenario.

@sbobgal wrote:

Sounds very uncomfortable with the "theft" scenario.

You do not steal anything. There is a good chance you would do it as a customer. You selected 2 different style, but same size white tiles to see which one looks best in your bathroom. You put the two tiles together on your cart and continued shopping. You want to purchase a tote and a pair of working gloves for your husband or friend and you put the gloves in the bag to see if they fit. You grab different parts that you need for the electrical project in your house and you put them together. The cashier is supposed to check the items one by one and not assume all the items are the same price. You are actually supposed to inform the cashier if he misses the items, at the end.

Yes. You do not actually steal anything. You correct the cashier before paying and leaving the store. However, you do set up your cart in a deceptive way. Which is perfectly okay. It's one of the main reasons why this mystery shop is being done. They want to know if the cashiers are doing their job correctly or not. You just have to realize that if you get a cashier that does their job correctly, you're going to look like you're trying to steal stuff. I don't mind it at all, because I know I'm doing a job. It takes a little getting used to though.

@thunderdeacon wrote:

You just have to realize that if you get a cashier that does their job correctly, you're going to look like you're trying to steal stuff.

Really? I am getting different tiles and put them in a single pile in my cart so they won't break. How else am I supposed to put them? Same with electricals. You stop at each dept, get your stuff and put them at the same spot in your cart. I mean it is the same in the supermarket. Even at the gas station. I do not think customers over analyze it how they would put the stuff in their carts. This weekend I grabbed 2 bags of peanuts, the ones 2 for $1.09 but did not notice that the second bag was a different variety and different price. Only when the attendant scanned them one by one and told me $2+ I realized my mistake and switched packages. If the attendant scanned only the 1st ag, twice, and totalled them for $1.09, was it my fault, did I do it on purpose trying to steal them? It happens innocently every day to people. But then there are others who do them on purpose and I bet it is more than the low value items used for the shop. This is corporate compliance for each store and I bet the manager's bonus will be tied in to that too. Not only they are supposed to scan the items one by one, but do the cart with a specific order. I bet the data analytics team gathered the results from the first rounds and determined when most errors occurred. Now they want to know if certain order was followed. Same reason the supermarkets have the large item on the bottom.

I did the curbside pick-up of 1 item then go into Home Depot and buy 8 items, arrange them in your cart and take a picture before checkout. Then return everything. Took more than an hour, I was sweating and my legs hurt, even though I used the app. $50. Not worth it IMO. Took forever to find the exact screw and electrical outlet, etc. because there’s thousands of SKU’s in each bay.

Wow. I really liked these jobs. I would do several a week if they were available in my area. The inside purchase portion takes me about 85 minutes. The pay is $65 each and that is SWEET money compared to most jobs in my area.

I’m 72. Too much for me! Lol.

I liked these jobs and averaged 60-75 minutes at most. They pay well and are great if you are comfortable with the scenario and plan ahead. The HD website for each store will tell you exactly which aisle and bay that each item is located.

Wait, your HD still has people to check you out?

Well, yes.

I've done a lot of these. First one took over an hour but now they go a lot quicker because I know where each SKU is located. I don't love them at $50 but I love the one I'm doing tomorrow at $90!

My experience at Home Depot is they know they are being shopped. The Pro Dept Mgr gave me the entire story down to the smallest detail. The cashier sort of knew, he caught everything including what I was holding.

@buckhill2 wrote:

My experience at Home Depot is they know they are being shopped. The Pro Dept Mgr gave me the entire story down to the smallest detail. The cashier sort of knew, he caught everything including what I was holding.

An MSC scheduler told me once that when the store knows the entire scenario it's because they know a shopper or live with a shopper. They get inside information from a shopper who is violating their shopper agreement. They may never do the shop themselves, so they don't feel bad about telling someone about it. But it's still violating their shopper agreement. I had a grocery store produce associate tell me the current month's scenario, and I just looked surprised, needless to say, I didn't do the shops for that location again for a few months.