Does anyone else have trouble with The Source approving you for shops? I’ve done one whop with them quite a while back and now every time I apply for one it sits under “review” for days then it goes to someone else

Just keep on trying and apply for shops that seem to stay on the board longer. It may not be your favorite shop but it is the only way to get your foot in the door. Once you have completed a few shops this way you will eventually be approved for self assigning.

I have not worked for these guys since they told me to register as a business with the state.

Interesting. They never told me that, although they did request an EIN -- which I suppose actually is registering as a business with the "state", even though the number comes from IRS.

OP, phone calls work well with this MSC. Although their schedulers seem to be working mostly remotely, if you call the office and leave a message to show you're actually interested and available, you might get better results.

Also, you may just live in an area where they have plenty of shoppers available. I recommend doing the more in-depth background check for on-site inspections.

This is one of my favorite companies, pay is fast and fair, communication is good.

Apply, copy the information particularly the Project Number, then contact Support. State that you don't know why you don't have self-assign on the shop. They will reply.

There are a couple of things going on here. First, they recently reduced the number of grocery shops you are allowed to self-assign per round. Second, they always seem to have problems retaining schedulers, and the current ones don't seem to be getting proper training. I do grocery jobs regularly in two widely separated parts of the country, and things have been a mess in both places for the last 6 weeks. In my home area, the primary scheduler I deal with does not know how to confirm manual shop requests made via the web site. Not exaggerating. He has sent out email solicitations with bonus offers for particular locations while I have had requests at base rate for the same locations sitting in my account. He responds positively to emails and confirms shops that way, but only seems to check his email during a short window every day. The newest schedulers do not understand the concept of doing routes and will assign 2 or 3 locations out of 5 requested (if they assign anything at all), with the others going to someone else. Some locations are now being deferred to the following round, and I believe they are late in releasing the next round of competitor shops. It is all very frustrating, and I don't think it bodes well for the company retaining this significant client. I hope they get things together.

I only work directly with the scheduler. I text her once a week and give her my availability and she tells me what they have and assigns them to me. If she needs something in my area she will text me directly and ask if I can do it.