I have noticed that for the last 6 months or so, the pay is VERY low. anybody have any ideas why?

Corporate greed?

nc, capitalism, of which I am a proponent, includes the concept of supply and demand. Until, which I do not believe will ever occur, shoppers stop working for a pittance, a pittance is all they will receive. In addition, MSCs have succeeded in propagating the word FREE. Finally, astute business folks have milked the Arab/camel adage to success.

@shopperbob wrote:

nc, capitalism, of which I am a proponent, includes the concept of supply and demand. Until, which I do not believe will ever occur, shoppers stop working for a pittance, a pittance is all they will receive. In addition, MSCs have succeeded in propagating the word FREE. Finally, astute business folks have milked the Arab/camel adage to success.

So, do you think we should all refuse jobs till the pay increases?

Terminator Bob said it best. As long as people will take the shops at what they pay, why should they pay more? Not everyone is going to be like Costco and pay a decent wage for low-skill labor. It's nice that they do, but most do not. So people who do this for a living might be better off working for Costco and getting benefits in addition. Plus the COST stock broke thru $1K this week and is doing quite well. I remember buying it when it was under $200 per share. Obviously I did not buy enough at that time.

@nc wrote:

@shopperbob wrote:

nc, capitalism, of which I am a proponent, includes the concept of supply and demand. Until, which I do not believe will ever occur, shoppers stop working for a pittance, a pittance is all they will receive. In addition, MSCs have succeeded in propagating the word FREE. Finally, astute business folks have milked the Arab/camel adage to success.

So, do you think we should all refuse jobs till the pay increases?

In the world of free market, the balance is often tied to Demand and supply, and of course, everything come with a risk.

nc inquiries of SB--So, do you think we should all refuse jobs till the pay increases?

Bob replies--Such a thought, on my end, would be unwise. There seems to be a significant number of shoppers who are in need. That is how Ipsos, who rapidly pays, is able to attract people. Then, there are the shoppers who are attracted to FREE food, FREE gas and FREE etc. If, though, more folks refused to toil for the bones that are tossed their way, some MSCs would either cease to exist or leave some meat for ICs.

I wish to cite a real life example. In the Spring of 2007, I was contracted to
visit a Qiznos eatery to check on a student hired by Chase to hand out card apps. My pay was $15+$5, BUT, a new wrinkle appeared. IF I desired, I was to snap a pic of the store's exterior for an extra $5. Why not?

Roll forward in time to the Summer of 2022. Ipsos offered $12.50+$6+$1 to complete work at a gas station. The job, as stated, required a minimum of 25 pics, with not a penny for 1/4th of a hundred snaps. In that the shots were NOT optional, any had the potential in invalidate the report.

I believe (just to name a few) the See's Candy shops, Haagen Dazs, and Chase inquiry shops about accounts/overdraft/etc all pay the same they did 10 years ago. I highly doubt those MSC employees are working for the same pay they did 10 years ago.

Accepting a pittance a day keeps the bonus away.

So, do you think we should all refuse jobs till the pay increases?[/quote]

I'm with you. My hubby is refusing to do the green and white stations for $3 less!

The biggest mystery shopping company has consistently dropped pay, when inflation has went up. I haven't shopped but going on 8 years now, and many of you have even more years on me.
The green and white station added an attribute question and lowered the pay by $3. I've also googled shops in other states where the cost of living is much higher than here in Georgia. The rates are the same whether the shop is here or an expensive state.
I assigned a 2 dispenser green and white thats fairly new, maybe a year old. I won't assign any more till the rate goes up. You can't add an attribute question to a regular ms/audit and then drop the rate $3.
If you call a strike for shops to reach a certain rate before we take them, i will support and not shop either.
We've been working 6-7 days a week for months now trying to survive.
It is what it is. We may lose some urban shops to new shoppers but ultimately if they don't get a certain number done a day, they will have to raise the rate it would seem. Yes, being on strike may hurt for a little while, but i think ultimately it would work, so i would suppirt.

Costco came out and said they are paying $30 per hour. Get a job there instead of wasting your time doing gas station shops. I am amazed at how many people depend on these gas station shops. I do see some get quite high in pay in desperation, but the general fees on all of them are not worth my effort.

@hbbigdaddy wrote:

Costco came out and said they are paying $30 per hour. Get a job there instead of wasting your time doing gas station shops. I am amazed at how many people depend on these gas station shops. I do see some get quite high in pay in desperation, but the general fees on all of them are not worth my effort.

I don't have that luxury. The very reason i get SSDI is because of mobility issues. I can't stand 8 hours. I can barely stand 10 minutes. I was exhausted and in pain just from going to Dollar Tree last night. I like my job. It keeps me mobile and doesn't require standing for long periods. If you can work at Costco then you go get a job there. Thats more gas stations for me.

@F and L TeleComm wrote:

... I've also googled shops in other states where the cost of living is much higher than here in Georgia. The rates are the same whether the shop is here or an expensive state.
...

On some projects I do see big disparites in the pay between states. I will be picking up $35 per station in one state, and then it drops to $20 once I cross the state line, and stays at $20 until only day or two before the period ends. It appears states with lower average incomes/cost of living tend to get the lower fees, although that may not be strictly true. Has anyone else noticed this?

I was speaking with my brother this morning. He works for an independent car dealership. He said the owner is closing and this has been a successful local business for years.
I asked him why
His response "the car business just isn't what it used to be" and we're going to mull all that over at dinner tonight.

That comment now applies to so many businesses I come across lately and business people I speak with...could be a number of factors: lower margins, increased costs (not only labor, but capital, insurance, ad space has all changed, etc.)

and yet the equity markets are robust....so somebody's making money. Lots of money.
I could speculate about a trickle up effect, but that would only take us down a path of politics and I have lost the will for that.

Peace out....as George Carlin once said, you can thank your owners.

<Has anyone else noticed this?>

Yes, with storage unit shops....I won't do them in this state, where they net 50% less than where I used to live.
Not worth it....

@F and L TeleComm

Sorry for your mobility issues. Sounds like shopping is well suited for it either if you have to constantly be getting in and out of the car and walking around gas stations or retail stores.

I'm sure Costco has desk jobs too. Someone is answering those phones when you call the store and they are not standing for 8 hours to answer phones.

I did a lot of apartment shops in CA, it never dawned on me that they would or could pay less.. but they did, and they do here in AL. That doesn't seem to be the case with most retail business shops though, like gas stations, groceries and cell phones.

@shopperbob wrote:

nc, capitalism, of which I am a proponent, includes the concept of supply and demand. Until, which I do not believe will ever occur, shoppers stop working for a pittance, a pittance is all they will receive. In addition, MSCs have succeeded in propagating the word FREE. Finally, astute business folks have milked the Arab/camel adage to success.

And after many years trying to squeeze out the most I can in an efficient manner (if I were to check my spreadsheets, hit ~$45-50 per hour when adding both reimbursements and fees at one point), but dropped down to more like $25-35 per hour, I decided to finally hang it up and just make more money overall with my full time career to afford the things I want in life.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2025 08:45PM by Tarantado.

The only worthwhile food reimbursement I’ve seen is TR. The rest, esp the sub one creates tax implications since at face value it counts as income. It’s so not worth it. Supporting them in ripping us off hurts us all. I’ve gone on strike on my own.
The climate both political and economic is for the short term money grab. Ipsh*tz is a prime example. They know what their greed will eventually lead to but they hate their ICs so much they can’t help themselves. They would rather lose contracts than pay us more. It’s obvious they’re taking their frustration out on us for the Feds keeping an eye on them. Well… at least they were.

I'm not sure what's going on but it's caused me to fall back on doing as many shops that I would normally do. One merchandise company (they get talked about a lot for the positive but not sure why) used to pay me a decent amount per assignment but now it's half of that if I'm lucky. Then they say stuff like pay is negotiable then try to assign projects to you at the set price instead of the offer price. I put in offers for assignments and they would decline them only to raise the price to exactly what I was asking for. Sometimes they would do passive aggressive stuff like say they don't have any more shops available or they have already been assigned only for me to see the same shops showing as available. Then when someone screws up and refuses to revisit the locations they try to reach out to other shoppers to correct the mistake. I only started MS for extra income to pay some things off early but I could only imagine what it's like for those that depend on it for primary income.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2025 04:29PM by nikkinicky.

All this negative thinking leads nowhere ! If you noticed, all the work gets done. With or without you. I agree the pay should be higher, but the amount of shoppers out and about is staggering now. If you wait for a bonus, the shop is gone. You also deal with "cherry pickers", taking one stop and that is it. It screws up routes. So, in my area of the country (I work in 3 states) you need to grab what you can. You know certain shops will get bonused eventually, but just an extra $3 to start. Going against the grain...I love gas stations ! 3 to 5 days to get them done and if I wake up and don't feel like working, I don't ! I'm fortunate to not need to work full time and I average $30 an hour with what I do part time. With all the fuel and having a car that gets 35+ MPG, it gives me the flexibility to do certain work without worrying about driving 50 miles and the cost. Because it is already in my tank. Example, I just did 4 Netspend stops yesterday, 48 miles for $48. But, 2 days prior, I did 8 stations. (3) 2 gallons of fuel stations and (5) $4 of fuel stations. I drove 100 miles round trip for them. 3 gallons of fuel needed. So, I have a bonus amount of fuel, about 5 gallons (175 miles). So, in my opinion, it is how you put together what you are doing. I can't stand shops that want a book written, so I don't do them. I hate cell phone shops and don't see the point of restaurant ones (spending way too much time there, just for a reimbursement) I can eat at home for cheaper and I can make my steak perfect ! Of course, "to each their own". But, you can still make half decent money, doing it your own way.

tarantado shares--.........I decided to finally hang it up and just make more money overall with my full time career to afford the things I want in life.

Bob comments--An excellent solution to an unacceptable situation. As I was retired and neither needed nor wished to return to traveling sales, I chose the 3 category system of shopping. In these times, one must accept, change or move on with their life.

The only state I've seen high fees is Montana. I thought about moving to California for the next 4 years which would mean a higher cost of living and the shopper fees on my board matched Georgias!

The MSC's have been relying on the free market concept for ages to justify their low payment schemes, and I'm sure they will continue to, since components of the current economy will drive even more shoppers to them.

I consider myself fortunate to have other options where I can focus my energy on that earn more. I know many here feel squeezed by the current pricing structure and cost of goods, yet don't have a choice but to power through.

Like Bob, I see this as business-only and now take shops strictly when they benefit me. No more favors for schedulers. I will happily 'cherry pick' the best assignments and not have a second thought about ignoring the stragglers that remain on the board...sorry @claabe

I was recently in a relatively remote location outside the U.S. where 2 dinner shops were posted at a resort. I took one because I wanted to see what this particular resort was like. It was clearly the more desirable restaurant of the two, and the scheduler agreed to my requested fee, which was much higher than I would have gotten domestically. After finishing the first report, I offered to take the second assignment before leaving the country, for a higher fee (enough to cover a night at the resort), and was declined. The shop is still sitting there. I cannot see how they will get it assigned and completed by the end of this month. Even if one was at the resort on their own, it's almost too much work for the reimbursement considering the price of food in that part of the world. There's no online menu so I checked out the menu when I was there. It was nothing I was excited about, and so my offer included what I thought was a fair compensation for it being undesirable both geographically and gastronomically, but it wasn't out of this world. Maybe $150 more than they would have agreed to.

So here's the big question; Will the MSC lose the client for not scheduling the shop?

I am sure the client knows it's a difficult location to find a shopper for, but when the scheduler agreed to give me the first restaurant, they showed their hand, since the client now knows they can get a quality shopper to that location. Whether or not it results in them losing the client, I cannot say, but I feel pretty well assured that it makes them look bad in the eyes of the client.

If you have a client with locations all over the word, who is rapidly expanding, in what business universe would it not be advisable to pay an additional $150 to knock out 2 hard-to-schedule locations and potentially impress your client? That's a rhetorical question because there isn't a universe where that makes sense. The answer is that the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. The scheduler is just being a scheduler and not thinking big picture about pleasing the client. The MSC is just being cheap, as usual, and not empowering the scheduler to do their job in a way that benefits the MSC down the line. It's small thinking all the way around.

I am also glad I held them to the higher fee for the first location because, like always, they screwed me in the currency conversion in the reimbursement. I literally included a receipt that showed the USD conversation for the meal on the credit card slip and their stingy policy of looking up the theoretical exchange rate for that day and applying it, rather than the effective rate, cost me $9.

And then it's really down to the same rhetorical question; In what universe does pissing off one of your top evaluators for $9 make sense? I smile a bit each day that I see that restaurant on the job board still...

Bummer on the exchange rate ! For what you did/do for the company, $ 9 is absurd.
The cherry picking, I was referencing taking just one gas station here or just one there (not for a higher fee, just the same as the rest, not bonused) Happy eating in the future.

STEVE So Cal: I agree! I hope it keeps sitting. Yes, many times ive made an offer on a shop 30 minutes from me that doesn't usually get picked up till the end of the month for the higher fee. I offered to it for my fee (halfway between base and the high fee, early in the month. I then became busy and by the time I did pick it up ( by myself) they ended up having to pay ME the high fee anyway at the end of the month... They could have saved money & got it done earlier in the month if they had agreed to my fee!

@claabe wrote:

The cherry picking, I was referencing taking just one gas station here or just one there (not for a higher fee, just the same as the rest, not bonused)

I know, and I was just yanking your chain because you used that term.

I happen to know the owner of the MSC that I do most of the work for has specifically used that term when describing my behavior to the schedulers! At one point, I had two really great assignments and they asked me to pick one to keep, since the owner felt I was taking only the best shops and I had to give up one of the shops up for the other shoppers to fight over...

I'm thinking about packing it in. Ever-shrinking fees, more and more shoppers flooding the market and snapping up jobs at base -- it just isn't making economic sense anymore, given the driving involved.

I believe that the gopher app has changed many of the fees I used to get for certain shops. It makes many shops available to inexperienced shoppers so the cost is minimal to the MS company. I am sure the quality is less but the shops are getting done. If someone screws up, they just put it back on the board. This new technology world we live in has impacted our ability to negotiate for higher wages in many cases. Technology has also made the shops I do easier in many ways. I really like coming home with all my shops already completed.