Who makes up the cost of any shop?

I see some shops can range from $10 to $25, depending how desperate the MSC is for the shop. If a shop payment goes up, does the mystery shopping company make less? or is the corporation wanting the report have to pay more?

Create an Account or Log In

Membership is free. Simply choose your username, type in your email address, and choose a password. You immediately get full access to the forum.

That depends on the contract between the client and the MSC or, in some cases, the contract between the MSC and the schedulers, who may bear some of the loses in reduced scheduling fees or lack of production bonuses.

Based in MD, near DC
Shopping from the Carolinas to New York
Have video cam; will travel

Poor customer service? Don't get mad; get video.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/22/2021 02:32PM by walesmaven.

I can't say for sure, but I'm guessing most of the large MSC are experienced enough to pad the fees so that they don't lose $. There are some companies that pay a pittance to begin with and routinely "bonus" their shops to get them done. In all reality...they are only paying a fair wage when they "bonus" them. They are just hoping there are people who like to shop and don't care about the $ and take the low fees. So if you see a company offer $10 and regularly have to increase and pay $20-$25 by the end of the month...you can be pretty sure they are still charging the client in excess of what they are paying the shopper.

On rare occasions I have seen the fee raised a substantial amount and that makes me think the MSC is penalized by the client for NOT delivering the information on all locations. I would think if I am a large chain (retail or restaurant) and am being sold "an information service" by a MSC, I would expect that the salesperson promising to provide the information would deliver on all locations and not just the easy urban locations that don't take much effort to fill due to the high volume of shoppers.

There are companies with thousands of locations that have in the contract that the final amount paid to the MSC is tied to the percentage of locations completed.

My assumption is that the MSC contracts with the Client for a fixed fee and the Client has no idea - nor care - what fees the MSC pays the scheduler, the shopper, and the editor. The MSC makes most when there is no bonus, some when they have to pay a bonus, and takes a loss when the bonuses are large. It may often be the case that reimbursements come out of the MSCs pocket and that these are not billed to the Client but rather are taken into account when the MSC and the Client negotiate the fee. Of course, every MSC-Client agreement is different.

From a logical standpoint, I agree with Rousseau. In the past, I have been informed the MSC would need to confer with the client, but I never believed that was necessary; merely an attempt to play "good MSC, bad client."

Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.

Click here to login

Who makes up the cost of any shop?

Create an Account or Log In

Official List of Mystery Shopping Companies

Mystery Shopper Magazine