@SoCalMama wrote:

@SunnyDays2 wrote:

@SoCalMama wrote:

I have worked for Market Force (Shop N Check) since 1999. They have partially deactivated me three times. I haven't seen a real bonus on their job board in years. Even shops in airports are rarely bonused with a few exceptions. I can only see as far back as five or eight years on my account, but I do only $200- $1500 a year for them. My theory has been that if you can keep your fees under $600 and not get a 1099, they will keep you on. In the past once you got close to $600, you couldn't see any jobs until the next year.

That theory is not totally true, in my case.... I have earned over $600++ yearly for almost 5 years now. I have not been kicked to the roadside... (yet). And, as far as diminished shops, there were as many shops, as there ever were.... Now, if you move to a smaller area, it seems there are less shops than the big city...(this is true)...

Do you mean over $600 in fees or $600 total? I can see I year where I made $1500, but $590 in fees (because I recall some inside secret about $600, and I took no more shops that year).

I still see a ton of shops for them still, just no bonuses. I had to reduce my search area to 20 miles because there were too many shops at 30 & 50 miles.

BTW, I shopped the wrong restaurant for them the other day and even entered the entire report. I was pretty impressed with myself (not). They apologized over and over for not being able to accept it. I guess it wasn't a big deal to them, since I assigned a half dozen airport shops after that? Basically, I think that I proved to them that I am not professional. LOL

In my defense, there are some brands that have 3 names (example: Safeway, Vons, Pavilions), so that was what I had told myself, it was just their other brand. The food was great, so no loss. $7 and a half hour of my day. Sigh.

Sorry, I missed this question. In answer, I seem to average about $5,000 a year, but take 1/2 of that in fees and 1/2 of that in reimbursements. I hope that helps. I used the idea of $600 plus to show that it is more about quality but they also appreciate quality + quantity in their good shoppers.

I think Mystery Shopping "is" a skill.

You have to be a "skilled writer" to do the large amount of narratives, that are required for most shops. You have to be skilled in playing a part, such as wanting to buy a new car, or purchasing an expensive purse, in real life that you can't afford, but on your shop, you convince the salesperson you DO want to buy it! That takes skill!

You have to have "skill" with balancing all your shops, not arriving too early and not arriving too late, getting to the right location, for a place you have never been before, spelling correctly is a major plus, so poor-spellers could not do this line of work, not blowing your cover by being calm and not acting nervous, being punctual, being keen and anticipating your target might be on to you, so you make sure to throw her off (many times)

Now, take the average Joe. Give him all the above. Expect him to perform flawlessly, every day, without fail and be patient enough to be paid 40-60 days after that person "performs" his assignment correctly

@SunnyDays2 wrote:

I think Mystery Shopping "is" a skill.

You have to be a "skilled writer" to do the large amount of narratives, that are required for most shops. You have to be skilled in playing a part, such as wanting to buy a new car, or purchasing an expensive purse, in real life that you can't afford, but on your shop, you convince the salesperson you DO want to buy it! That takes skill!

How many of MF's shops require long narratives? Most of them are either short 10-20 word narrative answers or outright no narrative/optional narrative shops.

@SunnyDays2 wrote:

You have to have "skill" with balancing all your shops, not arriving too early and not arriving too late, getting to the right location, for a place you have never been before, spelling correctly is a major plus, so poor-spellers could not do this line of work, not blowing your cover by being calm and not acting nervous, being punctual, being keen and anticipating your target might be on to you, so you make sure to throw her off (many times)

Agree here. At one point it was a challenge to be sure I didn't accidentally double-book myself. Not blowing one's cover can be difficult, but I've gotten to where it's second nature. I used to prefer revealed audits, but not anymore (I'll still do some shops with a reveal element but not many).

@SunnyDays2 wrote:

Now, take the average Joe. Give him all the above. Expect him to perform flawlessly, every day, without fail and be patient enough to be paid 40-60 days after that person "performs" his assignment correctly

It's that last part that I think really discourages people who would otherwise be great at MS. That, and the penny-ante pay of some of these jobs.

Yes, I agree that all of the above skills are necessary to work in this field successfully, however, in the case of those who don't possess all or even most of the skills, there is little to stop them from trying it out. That represents the difference between the successful MSers and those who give up or are deactivated in the short run. One does not need to prove themselves before jumping in to this field, at least for starters. Anyone can think they have the skills, but only those who truly possess them will succeed. There is no piece of paper to show MS companies "I will be good at this," "I have been trained for this," including the silver and gold certifications which anyone with some money can complete and get.

"How many of MF's shops require long narratives? Most of them are either short 10-20 word narrative answers or outright no narrative/optional narrative shops."

I was referring to mystery shopping in general when I made this comment about narratives.

@SunnyDays2 wrote:

Now, take the average Joe. Give him all the above. Expect him to perform flawlessly, every day, without fail and be patient enough to be paid 40-60 days after that person "performs" his assignment correctly

Which no one can do. Yet, that is what is expected of us. Mystery Shopping is not an easy way to produce an income.

I've worked for MF for 3 years and never had a problem. I guess I'm lucky.

10 years for me and no problems.

I just got a congratulatory email from MF for 250 completed shops. That made me feel great. No other company does stuff like that, at least not yet in my tenure with them.

Robinv

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/28/2015 03:48PM by robinv.

@robinv wrote:

I just got a congratulatory email from MF for 250 completed shops. That made me feel great. No other company does stuff like that, at least not yet in my tenture with them.

Robinv

I agree. It's nice that MF does that. I also like the birthday greetings, with the extra-shop bonus for shops accepted on your birthday. (Although, because of the place in the month my birthday falls, I've never been able to really benefit, but it's still nice.)

There are several companies that send birthday greetings to their shoppers and thank you e-mails near the end of the year holidays and other times throughout the year. It's very nice.

The birthday greetings and shop number greetings are undoubtedly programmed by a human being. On the other hand, I've had some extraordinarily kind and understanding personal communication with humans there.

Of course we all know that the greetings sent by MF are not personal greetings that an employee sits at the computer and sends to individual shoppers. Knowing that the greetings are programmed and automatically sent does not make it less "nice."

When receiving a gift, did no one ever tell you "it's the thought that counts?" So true. It's not the specific message you receive. What is nice is that MF has determined that they want to do this and have done the programming required. It's so easy to do that ALL MS companies *could* do it ........ but most do not. So MF in this area has gone an extra inch to reach out to shoppers, beyond the "industry standard." To me, that qualifies as nice.

MF used to be my No. 1 MSC in terms of number of shops performed, then without explanation, wrote me that I would no longer be allowed to shop a particular high volume client and it was not due to being identified as a shopper. MF would not explain but it also coincided with their having paid me big bonuses on several hard to fill / remote location shops for this client and my sense was they thought I was making too much money from them (i.e. got too smart) and they wanted a less informed shopper base who would work for much less.

Then I saw one of my favorite MSCs lose one of their regular clients to MF and the first thing MF did was cut the shopper fee 66% or from $12 to $4. What a nice MSC!...(NOT!) And MF has since followed a practice of gobbling up clients by offering lower shopper fees, thus trading off shoppers backs with no benefit to shoppers. And when they capture more big clients, they corner a larger share of the market of available MS jobs in the area, thus cramming down lower fees on shoppers who truly never made much money on this business to begin with. MF works AGAINST shoppers' economic interests when they do this, and in my area has gotten so bad I hardly ever accept an assignment from them because they pay dirt wages in the vast majority of cases and only occasionally pay something equitable / reasonable given the time/expense/travel required to complete the job.

Some of their schedulers in the field are nice people. But staff at the home office are often impossible to reach / unresponsive and I'm told they have high turnover as they may pay/treat their own staff poorly as well. Shopper Beware!

@Yohan wrote:

Then I saw one of my favorite MSCs lose one of their regular clients to MF and the first thing MF did was cut the shopper fee 66% or from $12 to $4. What a nice MSC!...(NOT!) And MF has since followed a practice of gobbling up clients by offering lower shopper fees, thus trading off shoppers backs with no benefit to shoppers. And when they capture more big clients, they corner a larger share of the market of available MS jobs in the area, thus cramming down lower fees on shoppers who truly never made much money on this business to begin with. MF works AGAINST shoppers' economic interests when they do this, and in my area has gotten so bad I hardly ever accept an assignment from them because they pay dirt wages in the vast majority of cases and only occasionally pay something equitable / reasonable given the time/expense/travel required to complete the job.

Hmmmmm.....you wrote about this on another thread. I was actually glad when MF took that client from Satisfaction Services. It could be that the particular shop you wrote about paid more in your area than mine. But I was pleased to see the shop move to MF because I could now view the shop posted on MF's job board and self assign rather than having to respond to an e-mail sent by Satisfaction Services. The payment, for me, is virtually the same. MF pays $4 and reimburses $16. With Satisfaction Services, for the same shop, I was paid $5 and reimbursed $15. I order the same thing I've ordered for years - both with SS and with MF - and I spend about $18 and keep $2 for myself. I noticed no difference when the client changed shops except that the report with MF is considerably shorter and easier than the SS report was.

So ..... although I like Satisfaction Services, no question that I am happier with performing the client's shops for Market Force. No more e-mail solicitations that I must reply to. I can see the shops on the MF job board and self-assign, the net pay to me is virtually the same, and the report is much easier. Win/Win for me.

billbryanincarthage you are right about market force.
My father worked for market force. he died three years ago. i kept dad's email account open--just couldn't bear to close it. market force sent an email 3 months after my dad died of rectal colon cancer. he died in a lot of pain. market force sent an email 3 months after he died saying he was "deactivated."

dad was already dead.

worse, every year they send dad a birthday greeting.

You misunderstand my post. I should have written more clearly, since not everyone understands so easily. Of course, computers are not "nice." Computers are machines operated by people. People make choices about how we operate computers. Programming is a deliberate action done to serve a specific purpose. The choice made by management at Market Force to do the programming to send the e-mails to their ICs is nice IMO.

All companies are in business to make money. All MSCs make decisions about how to interact with their ICs, and profit is a part of their decision-making process. It makes little difference to me what the motive of a company (or a person, for that matter) is; what matters to me is how their actions affect me. To put it simply: I find the action MF has taken to do the programming necessary to send the e-mails to shoppers nice; it makes little difference to me whether their end motive is to increase their profit.

@Bill, your statement "Marketforce sees a profit in appearing to be nice to shoppers, because, according to Dr. Caldini, the expert on persuasion as used in marketing campaigns, if the customer things that the company is nice, the customer is likely to make a purchase" [sic] doesn't apply to our situation. As ICs, we are NOT the customer of MF and we do not make purchases. Market Force is in fact the customer of each of the ICs who work with them.

@BillBryaninCarthage wrote:

nice is defined as kind, polite, and friendly. ...

There's nothing contradictory about having a profit motive and being kind, polite and friendly. Now if the emails starting saying, "I love you," then I might be more skeptical.

This has gotten absolutely ridiculous.

b, are you still on that road trip? Are you iced in? We have deep ice here and very few brave souls ventured out on the main road over the weekend. I'm hearing a little traffic from up that way this morning, sounds like mostly trucks. Hope you're safe.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2015 11:08PM by MDavisnowell.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2015 11:08PM by MDavisnowell.

i log in to dad's account on my birthday and on his birthday every year. somehow i'm hoping dad tries to communicate with me. dad said he would if he could. so i leave the hotmail account open.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/29/2015 11:59PM by MDavisnowell.

@Bloogers wrote:

Sorry about your dad, flexy. But could you PLEASE keep personal stuff in private messages and not in public?

Who died and made you the thread police?

Flexy's dad.

This was an enjoyable thread. Thank goodness someone came along to instigate betty pickering. Problem solved.

Who is Betty Pickering?