I do almost exclusively food shops, dining or grocery because well, I’m a foodie and I enjoy grocery shopping, especially new stores. I’d appreciate any ideas for other MSC’s I might want to check out.
Anyway, around here (Oregon) here are the MSC’s I know that have grocery shops and my impressions.
Note: I have seen people say Marketforce has grocery shops, I’ll just say now, I’ve never seen any here.

Trend Source – has lots of shops, the new, improved shop and form is more reasonable, but both the pay and the reimbursement are ridiculously low, they also have restricted hours to shop that don’t really suit my schedule, so these shops are worth it if I am going there anyway, but not anything worth driving for.

Northfork – Has only a few shops and they seem to rotate between hours restricted to the morning and hours restricted to the afternoon/evening. The pay is decent and sometimes bonused, the reimbursement is ridiculously low, the report is not onerous. Reasonable shops.

JM Ridgeway – The shops they have are mostly in outlying areas, but a couple of them are fairly close to me. Reasonable pay, reasonable reimbursement, the customer service at the stores tends to be excellent so the reports tend to be a pleasure to write – even the closest of these is a bit of a drive for me, but these are my current favorite shops.

So, other MSC’s I should check out?
I used to be in the food service industry so I love warehouse type groceries too, all things food.

Removed

For restaurants, I like 2nd to None, A Closer Look, Sentry, Customer Impact.

I have done grocery for the Source and Northfork. While the Source's reimbursement was better, the pay for Northfork was better and the report so much simpler.

ISS schedule's for a couple MSC's that do grocery stores here in CA..but again, low fee's. Restaurant MSC's I like are: Customer Impact, Mercantile and Service Sense.

I just brought up the store locator map and I didn't see any in Oregon which is weird because I thought this store was everywhere. Anyway, that's probably why you can't see them. If you go to MarketForce's website and search a big city like Los Angeles, CA or Chicago, IL where there are multiple locations of that store, you will find out what chain it is.

I have also done grocery shops for Alta 360 but I don't think the chain I do is out west but perhaps they have a different one.

@jevanw wrote:

Anyway, around here (Oregon) here are the MSC’s I know that have grocery shops and my impressions.
Note: I have seen people say Marketforce has grocery shops, I’ll just say now, I’ve never seen any here.

MF's pay is the lowest I've seen, everyone talks about Trend Source, but MF is lower, 3.00 fee.

Just wondering, what did Trendsource use to pay before they decreased the reimbursement and fee?

@spunkd wrote:

Just wondering, what did Trendsource use to pay before they decreased the reimbursement and fee?

They had this account, they took a break and when it came back to them, they were paying $50 per shop! That lasted about 3-4 weeks.

I think that before it went on hold it was around $20 total (so maybe 10 years ago, it actually paid more).

Agreed, the MF client you are referring to is not present in the Northwest. It surprised me when I moved here because I thought they were everywhere too! The closest one to Oregon is in CA near Bakersfield. That is the chain that keeps paying lower and lower for the shops (because apparently $5 a couple years ago just wasn't low enough).

They also have a grocery client in the Southeast that usually gets shopped in the summers. That wouldn't be up here either, OP, since it's in the other corner of the country...but you might see people discussing that too FYI.

I just moved to the PNW this spring, but I have only seen grocery shops with the companies you mentioned so far plus ACL (which was mentioned in this thread). I'm a grocery shop lover too, so I am always on the lookout!

ETA: I just remembered I have seen a few (very few) with Kinesis/KSS near the coast, but they are like the JMRidgeway ones where there are just a small handful in mostly remote areas.

@kimmiemae wrote:

I just brought up the store locator map and I didn't see any in Oregon which is weird because I thought this store was everywhere. Anyway, that's probably why you can't see them. If you go to MarketForce's website and search a big city like Los Angeles, CA or Chicago, IL where there are multiple locations of that store, you will find out what chain it is.

I have also done grocery shops for Alta 360 but I don't think the chain I do is out west but perhaps they have a different one.

@jevanw wrote:

Anyway, around here (Oregon) here are the MSC’s I know that have grocery shops and my impressions.
Note: I have seen people say Marketforce has grocery shops, I’ll just say now, I’ve never seen any here.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/25/2018 12:50AM by RedRose22.