@retrodaddy wrote:
Thanks for sharing your experiences with Merchandiser. My experiences with Observa have wisened me up to the inaccuracy of their stated estimated times. I kinda figured having to work with a manager would take a bit of time, but not as much as you mentioned. Waiting a few days to see if the fee will go up (only four days left). They have merchandising gigs, one for a frozen food and one for t-shirts, at two different stores in my area. One of the stores I try to avoid, so that leaves t-shirt merchandising.
Well, your experience may well be different with managers/merchandiser. I live in the DC Metro area, and everyone here is very self-important. They're not really all that worried about your schedule or what it's costing you (and they may be completely clueless or never have thought about it, or think you're being paid hourly.) But, in dealing with managers here, they're always in the middle of something, and I've even tried calling to give them a heads up that I'm on the way or set a time with them (which resulted in me calling back to update the times when the shops before them didn't go as planned). But, even just to get there and call them to tell them that you're there, usually a 10 minute wait off the bat. Otherwise, I would have liked the shops well enough. If they paid just a bit more, they'd be worth it. Like, if they paid $20 a shop, and you were able to complete that and get to the next shop within an hour, that's $20 an hour. That's not bad money. I just haven't found a really good way to do it, honestly.
The other thing about Merchandiser is they pay their favorite people first (disclaimer: this was my experience years ago, they may have changed this procedure). And if you've had troubles with their shops, like completing them all because you built your route based on how long they estimated (and I usually doubled that, just to be on the safe side), and then you can't get them all done on that day.. they used to just make you get paid at the end of their pay cycle, which was often several days after they were supposed to pay. They outed themselves to a friend of mine who did work for them, blatantly admitting that they paid their favorite shoppers first, and their least favorite at the end.
In any case, under-estimated times, deliberately I feel, seems to be a thing with most mystery shopping companies who want to play on the shoppers' ethics to complete a shop once they've accepted it even if the shop is grossly underestimated, just so they get their quota for the company met.