I did a route of 4 bonused regular shops this past Monday in far Southwest Jersey.

If you search around zipcode 08701, you will find a bunch, some with a $15 bonus. I grew up in that area, but it is about a 75 minute drive and 60 miles away. The economics don't work for me.

The only free boxes at USPS are the flat rate shipping boxes and you can not use those for this project. You need plain, unmarked boxes. I used to buy them in bulk when I did this project for the old MSC, and they were not free - but they were reimbursed.

Just make sure if you do this shop, do no use the "free" boxes at the PO as your shop will be disqualified.

@Luv2Travel123 wrote:

What shipping supplies would you be paying for?? Boxes are free at USPS and buy a couple rolls of brown kraft paper at the dollar store.

@Cassiespark wrote:

Base Pay now is $5, no reimbursement for shipping supplies, $15 reimbursement for shipping.

@sestrahelena wrote:

I first did them around year 2000 for the company that, much later, sold all their contracts and got out of mystery shopping. Then the shops were with a naked MSC for a while, then another MSC (can't remember which, maybe two), then the Walmart of MSCs, eventually ending up where they are now. During the years, the bonuses and reimbursements (two stamps???) have steadily decreased. Previously, the reimbursement stayed the same whether you shipped or not - you could get books of stamps, tape, packaging supplies, etc. To me, that's a significant difference because I could always use shipping supplies but two single stamps are not enough of an incentive to make up for the reduced pay. If I remember correctly, the base pay had always been $12, for at least 20 years. The problem there, of course, is that $12 in year 2000 dollars is about $6 in year 2020 dollars.

@myst4au wrote:

I did a route of 4 bonused regular shops this past Monday in far Southwest Jersey.

If you search around zipcode 08701, you will find a bunch, some with a $15 bonus. I grew up in that area, but it is about a 75 minute drive and 60 miles away. The economics don't work for me.

Maybe. I live in an area like this and the shops are listed but they cannot actually be claimed. I get pop up messages about someone having claimed one too recently. They don't have unavailable jobs hidden. So, I thought perhaps I could contact the scheduler to get one assigned for when it is available? Nope, they can't schedule April yet!

Re: boxes. Use any box you have hanging around from Amazon or wherever, turn it inside out. Clean, no markings and free. Stay within required dimensions of course!

@sestrahelena wrote:

Re: boxes. Use any box you have hanging around from Amazon or wherever, turn it inside out. Clean, no markings and free. Stay within required dimensions of course!

Yes, this is what I do, they are completely blank inside. Easy, free, and reusing a box.

I had a clerk let me know they don't like wrapped boxes. Even though they have to take them, they prefer you not do that. The paper can snag in machinery, I guess? So, the one time I did this, the clerk made it clear I shouldn't and she wrapped so much priority tape around the thing, it was comical. I switched to inverting after that.

Can you invert the post office Priority mail boxes?

@Insight wrote:

Can you invert the post office Priority mail boxes?

Same as wrapping it. Why risk it? It only takes one employee deciding to make an example of you. You might get away with it 1,000 times or they might decide they don't like you. They absolutely know what you are doing, they handle those boxes all day every day.
[faq.usps.com].

No. The insides of the boxes are printed not blank cardboard.

@Insight wrote:

Can you invert the post office Priority mail boxes?

@myst4au wrote:

I did a route of 4 bonused regular shops this past Monday in far Southwest Jersey.

If you search around zipcode 08701, you will find a bunch, some with a $15 bonus. I grew up in that area, but it is about a 75 minute drive and 60 miles away. The economics don't work for me.

I’m driving 212 miles one way for a $200 night audit gas station. Then I’ll pick up another that’s 200 miles southwest of that location (but closer to home) and will only have 107 miles left to drive home.

Depending on what your mpg is, it might math out better than you think.

Priority boxes can be wrapped in plain brown paper grocery bags to ship. I am always on the lookout for boxes smaller than 12 x 12 x 12 when I shop. Dollar Tree is the only store that will not allow me to take empty boxes.

Hard to believe they no longer pay for packing materials! Just have to build that into the decision to do one I guess!

Yep, I did that even with other MSCs who reimbursed for box purchases.

@sestrahelena wrote:

Re: boxes. Use any box you have hanging around from Amazon or wherever, turn it inside out. Clean, no markings and free. Stay within required dimensions of course!

Our DT doesn't mind.

@Rho wrote:

Priority boxes can be wrapped in plain brown paper grocery bags to ship. I am always on the lookout for boxes smaller than 12 x 12 x 12 when I shop. Dollar Tree is the only store that will not allow me to take empty boxes.

The free USPS boxes now have USPS printing on the inside; if you still have some leftover from yesteryear, they are plain inside.

I no longer have kids in school but the public schools get a lot of deliveries of forms and other paper often in unmarked boxes with labels you can pull off. If you have a child or a friend who is at a school ask at the office. The beginning of the school year is great for that but they get new supplies throughout the year. I bought a roll of the brown tape in case there were small random marks I wanted to cover up.

Dollar Tree is my "go to" for free boxes! They tell me to take all that I need here.

@Rho wrote:

Priority boxes can be wrapped in plain brown paper grocery bags to ship. I am always on the lookout for boxes smaller than 12 x 12 x 12 when I shop. Dollar Tree is the only store that will not allow me to take empty boxes.

Contrary to popular belief, there is no cardboard recycling going on in CA. (Work related, so I know. They tell you that they are recycling, but it all goes to the same landfill.) I reuse almost every box from work that I can. I have about 50 in various shapes and sizes right now. I used about 10 leaf sized bags (55 gal?) of packing material for the AXE/Dove project and still have plenty leftover. I think that I shipped 50 large boxes for that project, 75% or more were reused.

I have yet to be refused a box from a grocery or retail store (Dollar Tree, Grocery Outlet, etc). It's much better for the environment to reuse than to buy new. Reduce and reuse, recycling is a scam other than beverage bottles.

Empty toilet paper & paper towel rolls make excellent lightweight packing for your boxes, especially when needing to keep things from sliding around inside the box. I have all my friends and family saving theirs for me too now.

Funny Story About This... When the shop was with the other company, they made a suggestion that if you didn't have someone to mail something to, you can mail food to a food bank. Great idea! So my dumb azz does the following...I buy a bunch of one pound bags of rice and a bag of peppermints--just to make sure I'm over a pound but not over 2 pounds. Then I mail them to food banks in San Antonio because you had to mail them out of the city where you lived.

Then...for some idiotic reason...back when the other company had the account...there were some titanic bonuses out in the Texas panhandle and on the border. So I get it under my dome to buy like 8 bags of rice and 8 packs to peppermints and set up this monster route to where I mailed them...to the same food bank in San Antonio. I could have mailed them home and either re-used them or ate the rice but no I sent them to SA. It wasn't a huge loss but still...about $15 in materials I didn't have to spend.

But wait...theres more.

I connect with another chummy chum chum on this board (she knows who she is) and we get to talking about Mystery Shopping and she...just in passing says...."I have a zip lock bag of rocks I send to myself." You should have seen the look on my face. I didn't need to spend any money at all (except for the ziplock bag I guess). I felt like such a dope!!!!

BTW...does anyone know if the requirement to send-out-of-town is still there?

lol Metro, one of my shipping partners likes to send me bags of rocks, I also occasionally get books that I'll probably never read. I told all of my shipping partners that I won't be participating with this MSC, but I still get packages from them now and then.

@Okie wrote:

I think someone else mentioned this before. I always found it odd to send something to yourself. But I think I only did this shop two or three times with the previous MSC.

Way back in the day a clerk looked at my debit card one time and made me show my ID. I did so and she questioned me sending it to myself. I said that I'm a junior sending it to my father. I was impressed I thought of that so quickly.

Why would you find it strange to mail to yourself? I would never do these if I didn't mail the package back to me. I reuse it until it's pretty beat up. I just replace the address sheet of paper so it looks fresh each time. Sometimes the stickers peel off easily and i can use it without redoing anything. I use a friend's return address.

Of course it's a bonus if I actually need to ship something.

It's none of the clerk's business why you would be mailing to yourself. I've never been questioned.

@Metro, you need to send to a zip code that is different than the one you're mailing from, hence I rarely do my own home town unless im actually sending something to someone else.

Meanwhile, they currently are paying too little to interest me.

I did a hazmat the other day and verified that mailing it to a different zip code that is never going to require a flight is just fine. And, it was easier now because I got to choose from their possible scenarios so I could do something realistic for me. My college kid thought it was weird that he got a box with a hazardous materials warning sticker on it that didn't contain anything hazardous but this scenario got my box sent and that was my goal. I never even look if I don't have anything I need to send but EOM, they had a lot of bonused locations.

Reading this I am stuck on mailing peppermints along with rice. I wonder if the peppermint aroma seeped into the rice.

WHy are they mailing peppermints with the rice?

@Insight wrote:

WHy are they mailing peppermints with the rice?

Rice = 16 0z
Peppermints = 4-6 Oz

No rejected shops for being too close to 1.0 pound

I did my first two Hazmats with the express purpose of sending my package to my son in zone 8 at the Ground Advantage price which is or was still under the reimbursement. Both shops failed and I purchased a very expensive, I thought, ugly plain gift card with my reimbursement. Then I found out I could purchase something better than that. So I did another Hazmat with the intention of bulking up on stamps (but my local po has been out of stamps for a while). I used a different scenario and my package was shipped but mis weighed so I spent my entire fee on the postage. Luckily I had a small bonus on that one. I have found I cannot win but if I find more Hazmat shops this quarter I will keep trying. Now I need the best scenario to fail sending with. The battery failed twice and passed once so far.