I just signed up with this board because I performed Da Shoppe Von Helleska in mid-January and have yet to be paid. I'm about to fire off another email to the company. Usually they take about 3 months to pay, but this is ridiculous.
I've done Da Shoppe Von Helleska multiple times in the last few years. To which I can only say, I really really needed to pay down that credit card, because every time I do that shop, I stagger out of the store vowing never to do it again. *sigh*
Here are my general tips - to be undertaken ONLY IF you want to do this shop multiple times:
1. Be familiar with Da Shoppe's layout in advance. Make a trial run. Grab a catalog.
2. Go through the catalog at home and pick out some small items. Come up with good questions to ask about these items IN ADVANCE to save yourself coming up with something on the fly.
3. Rewrite their cheat sheet in English with the steps arranged in the order you would perform them walking through the store. Their "cheat sheet" is ludicrous and doesn't even match the input form. Also, print out the input form.
4. Get an inconspicuous voice recorder and clip it inside your collar to record sales associates. (This is legal in my state and I delete the recordings when I'm done with the shop.) Otherwise it all runs together after the first hour.
5. I keep my husband on standby at home with the shop form pulled up. I can call him from a department and pretend to be asking questions about dimensions or appliances, and feed him information to input while I'm still at the store. This cuts down on my form input time later, and he can remind me of any questions I've forgotten to ask while I'm still standing by the associate.
6. Expect to spend a minimum of 3 hours in the store and another 2-3 hours inputting the data.
7. Employees frequently flip their name tags backwards. Act dumb and concerned. "Uh-oh, your name tag's flipped! Wouldn't want you in trouble with your manager!" That usually inspires them to turn them over.