IPSOS has a new program called iShop First. What are your thoughts on it? I think they are starting it with gas stations on Sassie.

Recently, an email was sent out to IPOS shoppers titled, "Get ready for iShopFirst". Essentially, it talked about how you could self-assign work for the first 1 to 4 weeks, depending on the project, without going through a scheduler, and even linked to a video where it was discussed in more detail.

My take on this initiative is that the goal here with this change, as with all the other changes that have been made, is not to benefit the shopper, but benefit their bottomline. To help them make even more profit than what they already make. And this is something I would be perfectly fine with if it weren't for this and other changes being at the shoppers expense in some shape or form.

I say this because with getting shoppers to do things earlier, that means IPOS doesn't have to worry about paying someone more to get it done later on, and that reduction in costs means more profit for them. But unfortunately, it also means less money for shoppers too because that's where the money is coming from. It's coming from shopper pay. When they pay less per shop, it doesn't come out of their pockets. It comes out of ours. That's how that works.

When I look at the email, it says "iShopFirst", and then it says, "Are you going to be first, [insert name]?" Why do you think this is? I think it is because they want to encourage shoppers to work at the lowest price levels, to pit one shopper against another shopper in this way, it benefits them financially. They are the ones that win. It doesn't benefit anyone else.

To break it down further, if Shopper A sees Shopper B take a shop they were interested in, that might make Shopper A angry to the point that they take a low paying shop that Shopper B was going to do. Then Shopper B becomes angry, and now you have two shoppers that are angry enough at each other that they are willing to work at the lowest prices just to keep the other guy from being able to get it. And when this happens, the shoppers lose, and the mystery company wins because the work gets done at the lowest cost, and it comes at the expense of shopper pay.

I think that improvements to scheduling are generally a good thing, but are outweighed by their aim to reduce our pay to where I see more bad than good in this. For instance, I rather me and my local competition both make $1,000 each doing our work than us maybe making $500 each, and they send us both a nifty little keychain or mug as "swag" as a way of saying thanks. Not that I think the swag is necessarily bad, maybe it's good, but I would still take the higher pay rate over it. I mean that's how I pay my bills. With money. Not swag.

So I wonder what does everyone else think about it? I'm sure there are going to be some people that rush to IPOS's defense for whatever reasons, but I also wonder if there are any other shoppers out there that see what I see. Am I the only one that sees this?

I think their ultimate goal is to increase their profit by reducing shopper pay. That they want people to rush to get the work done before the other guy does, so that the work gets done at the lowest cost by getting done earlier rather than later.

Seems like a way to get us to work for less and to get rid of schedulers

Yep and cut down on schedulers pay as well

@Mrcleandpsyahoo.com wrote:

Yep and cut down on schedulers pay as well

That too. First they got rid of the scheduler's that used to work for Maritz. Then they brought on some new schedulers, some of which it would appear they let go of, and now with this change, it would appear of the schedulers they do have, they intend to reduce that expense even further by having a completely automated system handle the scheduling during the first few weeks of a cycle. So it's cost cutting all around. Even the editors get paid less than what they used to from what I understand.

What bugs me about that, and this iShopFirst idea is they make these changes sound like they are good things for the shoppers when they are not. Or at least from my perspective anyway.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/19/2021 11:03PM by Curious99.

Insulting. Like it's a game. Or we're children. Note they didn't say what the"Swag" was. Probably crayons. And if you take just 50 more base pay shops you could be entered into a drawing for a coloring book to compliment the crayons! Yay!

And not even Crayola - the Dollar Tree crayons that don't work.

I'm not sure what the brouhaha is about. This looks to me like a fancy name for self-assign. They already allowed self-assign on at least some of the listed projects, so there doesn't seem to be much of a change. And the implication is they will still use schedulers toward the end of the month. I can see how this might impact schedulers, but it doesn't look like anything radical from the shopper viewpoint.

@sestrahelena wrote:

Insulting. Like it's a game. Or we're children. Note they didn't say what the"Swag" was. Probably crayons. And if you take just 50 more base pay shops you could be entered into a drawing for a coloring book to compliment the crayons! Yay!

Yeah, I'd agree. Especially when taking into consideration how much money the work we do generates for them. You would think they would be happy to share the wealth, but nope. It would seem they want to hog as much of it for themselves as possible, and then give the editors, schedulers, and shoppers the absolute smallest amount possible, while expecting top notch job performance at the same time.

On one of the projects, while talking to a gas station owner, he assumed us mystery shoppers must be filthy rich doing the work we do. I informed him nothing could be further from the truth. He said, "Really?". I said "yeah, mystery shoppers hardly get paid anything. I just barely get by." He replied, "Well, somebody must be getting rich off of these because I pay about $100 each time one of you mystery shoppers come out here." So you can do the math and figure out how much money IPOS may be making off you based on the number of shops you've done for them. And whether it's a few shops or many shops, there's a big difference between that number, and the cost of any swag they would be willing to give away.

Actually, I would have disagreed with you, until recently.

A shopper I had mentored over the years got mad at me for something irrelevant (not to do with mystery shopping), and furiously wrote me that she would drive to my area (hundreds of miles out of her area, BTW) and take all my bonused shops at base pay "and see how you like that!"

Ugh.

I'm ashamed to admit I told her to go right ahead -- if she was willing to pay out of pocket and take a loss (gas!!!) just to take my shops at base pay, she was welcome to them.

I think she got over it.

@Curious99 wrote:

Recently, an email was sent out to IPOS shoppers titled, "Get ready for iShopFirst". Essentially, it talked about how you could self-assign work for the first 1 to 4 weeks, depending on the project, without going through a scheduler, and even linked to a video where it was discussed in more detail.

My take on this initiative is that the goal here with this change, as with all the other changes that have been made, is not to benefit the shopper, but benefit their bottomline. To help them make even more profit than what they already make. And this is something I would be perfectly fine with if it weren't for this and other changes being at the shoppers expense in some shape or form.

I say this because with getting shoppers to do things earlier, that means IPOS doesn't have to worry about paying someone more to get it done later on, and that reduction in costs means more profit for them. But unfortunately, it also means less money for shoppers too because that's where the money is coming from. It's coming from shopper pay. When they pay less per shop, it doesn't come out of their pockets. It comes out of ours. That's how that works.

When I look at the email, it says "iShopFirst", and then it says, "Are you going to be first, [insert name]?" Why do you think this is? I think it is because they want to encourage shoppers to work at the lowest price levels, to pit one shopper against another shopper in this way, it benefits them financially. They are the ones that win. It doesn't benefit anyone else.

To break it down further, if Shopper A sees Shopper B take a shop they were interested in, that might make Shopper A angry to the point that they take a low paying shop that Shopper B was going to do. Then Shopper B becomes angry, and now you have two shoppers that are angry enough at each other that they are willing to work at the lowest prices just to keep the other guy from being able to get it. And when this happens, the shoppers lose, and the mystery company wins because the work gets done at the lowest cost, and it comes at the expense of shopper pay.

I think that improvements to scheduling are generally a good thing, but are outweighed by their aim to reduce our pay to where I see more bad than good in this. For instance, I rather me and my local competition both make $1,000 each doing our work than us maybe making $500 each, and they send us both a nifty little keychain or mug as "swag" as a way of saying thanks. Not that I think the swag is necessarily bad, maybe it's good, but I would still take the higher pay rate over it. I mean that's how I pay my bills. With money. Not swag.

So I wonder what does everyone else think about it? I'm sure there are going to be some people that rush to IPOS's defense for whatever reasons, but I also wonder if there are any other shoppers out there that see what I see. Am I the only one that sees this?

I am interested in doing little gas station mystery shops because I might get a little fuel in exchange for a very little work and a little money In inclement weather, I am safer with less time on-site than I am with shop-to-revealed audit gigs. in addition to that. I do not need a route of these. It would be wonderful to add some on the fly if/when I go somewhere. I have a small need and a small expectation for some of their shops, obviously. I have not completed any of the IPSOS gas station shops, and I have no recent experiences to reference here.

In defense of no one but as a general observation: IPSOS' change seems similar to when other business methods changed. For example credit card inquiries and payments changed. There used to be dedicated credit people in stores and on telephones. Now, there are online, automatic, and automated credit card payment methods and only a relatively few people performing customer interactions.

I feel for everyone who is likely to lose their livelihood or lifestyle. It is difficult enough in some places to scrape together a few bucks and leverage them. At first glance, it appears that this company's shoppers will need to slash their budgets and/or increase the number of gigs or other work in order to meet current income expectations that bonuses had provided. OTOH, people who are quick with the self-schedule might scoop up all shops in a large radius and fill their days with all sorts of gigs. Perhaps they will be happy and profitable. ? But everyone is unique, and some people will not be able to keep up such a pace for mystery shopping for as many days as this would require in order to meet their income requirements which now would exclude significant bonuses. There might be other solutions. For example, there might be a few outliers or orphans, eventually, that someone can pick up for a few of for very acceptable bonuses. But that is a crap shoot. People who need this for a livelihood can't gamble.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2021 10:01AM by Shop-et-al.

I have had similar exchanges. They would preface a comment by asking, "Is this what you want?" or talk about previous shoppers who would let an infraction go or give them a break. We are really seen as the actual Face of the client. You really have to go on to explain how it actually works.

@Shop-et-al wrote:

.... I feel for everyone who is likely to lose their livelihood or lifestyle. It is difficult enough in some places to scrape together a few bucks and leverage them. At first glance, it appears that this company's shoppers will need to slash their budgets and/or increase the number of gigs or other work in order to meet current income expectations that bonuses had provided... People who need this for a livelihood can't gamble.

I think the real solution here is for at least some of us (myself included) is to just leave the mystery shopping industry because if we don't, those of us who are or have become dependent upon the work for a full-time income are just going to get taken advantage of. These people don't care about our well-being. They only care about their bottomline, and this continual push for greater profits on their part isn't going to stop with the iShopFirst idea. They are going to keep on keeping on, which is a shame because I like the nature of the work, just not the people who manage and run the programs. If we could get rid of the IPOS management, and owners, I think that would be great, but I know that's not going to happen.

On the bright side, I have learned of some other opportunities out there such as ones offered by Google. Google is now offering a very affordable certificate program to become a data analyst that they will accept in place of a four year degree. That kind of work starts out at $40,000 a year entry level, and can go up to over $80,000 a year in time. Compare that career trajectory with continuing to work for IPOS, and to me it's almost like comparing climbing a ladder versus standing on sinking sand (with IPOS). Obviously, data analyst work wouldn't be for everyone, but there's got to be better opportunities out there to make a living than what is possible with IPOS.

So maybe this iShopFirst initiative was what was needed for me to realize that. Instead of trying, and trying to make something work, that isn't, maybe the better way to go would be to just find something better.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2021 12:21PM by Curious99.

As we (I) move forward over time, change, good or bad, is inevitable. I accept that as an axiom.
When Maritz took over from CSI/Stericycle, I was not a big fan.
However, as I became accustomed to the Maritz ways, I decided I did like them. Especially the increase to $5.00 for gas purchase ("Blue" gas stations). For the question about doing the shop(s) again per rotation rules, I still wish that there was (or had been) a simple drop down menu that showed how each week, whether 1st, 2nd or 3rd scheduled out in the calendar. I could have made route scheduling much much easier.
With the IPSOS takeover, I am and still not much of a fan. The 3rd week shops were eliminated. Myself and other shoppers that have PMed me have discussed this issue and, we seem to be in agreement that many of us have had to give up our 3rd week shops.
Meanwhile the schedulers from Kern have opined why they like the shops to be finished in the first 2 weeks of the month. Yet, I still have not seen any satisfactory explanation how Maritz was able to allow shoppers to schedule the 3rd week in shops successfully while IPSOS seems unable to do so (other than gaining a bunch of inexperienced new shoppers all vying for the same shops - not that new shoppers are a bad thing).
But now, along comes "IShopFirst". When I viewed the video, my first thought was and still is that the scheduling demise of 3rd week shops to the repeat shoppers has been a disaster.
Sure, the shops have been, for the most part, gobbled up. But, how well were they done? I suspect not well. Plus, how many schedulers and IPSOS itself have received requests and/or complaints for pushing some shops into the 3rd week?
Just a guess, but I believe more than what should be thought as "normal" (whatever that is).
Secondly, as I listened to the video, I wondered about the "Swag". What is their idea of "Swag"? For me, if its not cash, its just more stuff I'll end up throwing out.
And what about the agreed upon date thing" Are they saying that the shopper who self-assigns must select a date, say May 14, must perform it on that date or is there a span of time with May 14 being the last acceptable day to do the shop? Maybe that question has been answered.
Yet most importantly, the self assigning of shops out into the nether regions of the month certainly ensures that bonuses are eliminated and probably schedulers.
Happiness for IPSOS - their Bottomline improves!

I have only completed five assignments for Ipsos in the ten years I have been contracted; the two reasons being an unacceptable work:reward ratio and very poor communications with shoppers. Predicated strictly upon the manner in which the company is currently being managed, I would be surprised if I accepted any work in the future. I do not, however, criticize their business decisions; they will either succeed or fail. My GUESS is they decided to adopt an approach whereby if they throw so much crap against a wall, some will stick. I do have a personal problem with anyone changing conditions to benefit themselves but claiming it is for my betterment. Over the years I have attempted to remedy that situation but failed. It usually takes a few days for me to control the desire to tell someone(s) to stick it where the sun does not shine!

obviously just a gimmick designed for them to make more money and shoppers to make less, but that only works if shoppers take the bait. really, it doesn’t make much difference anyway. no good bonuses come in the first quarter of the month(especially with who is scheduling now) so whether it’s ishopfirst, or ieatastarburst, first months are a no go for me.

I am still failing to see the big difference. Basically they have just extended the windows at the beginning of the month. This is what many shoppers on here have been wanting for a long time. Self-assign had already been available if you went directly to the Ipsos website instead of the scheduling company website. Yes, extending the initial window may cause shoppers in some areas to grab up shops at a lower rate instead of waiting, but really this scenario isn't different from the way it used to be on the maritz website when the windows were considerably longer, and many of those shoppers will eventually burn out or wisen up.

@mystery2me wrote:

I am still failing to see the big difference...

The big difference is how this applies to work that is on Presto.

With the gas station work they have moved to Presto, when they first did so last year, in I think quarter 2, you didn't have weeks with which to plan routes, and sign up for shops. You had something like 12, or 20 or 24 hours to get whatever work you signed up for done. That quarter was like a train wreck.

Then in quarter 3 of 2020 for that project, it looked like they experimented with some sort of early bird deal for that project, very much like the iShopFirst deal they are doing now. It didn't seem to be executed that well though.

Then in quarter 1 of 2021 for that project, they did it again, except it seemed to be a little better managed this time. And now with this "iShopFirst" deal, it would appear that they are trying to add some polish to an old idea, and expand it to make it as much of a system wide thing as possible.

And the reason for that is, I believe, is to make more money at our expense. Is that anything new? No, not really. Night time incentives have either been reduced or eliminated altogether on some projects, and deadline based incentives had been going down on average, for years based on the data I have.

The difference with it now is, I think the rate of decline in pay is going to be greatly accelerated as IPOS seeks to completely eliminate work done in the later part of a work cycle. Instead of continually paying less incentives for work done at the end of a cycle, I think they are looking to pay no deadline based incentives at all. And perhaps people are okay with that, but once they achieve that milestone, it makes me wonder what is next? We might think the base rate of pay we get on shops is safe, but if they can just about completely eliminate incentives, then what is next? Pay shoppers like Alta 360 does? I just don't see an end to it.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/20/2021 03:41PM by Curious99.

I am concerned about having only one date instead of a block of dates. Did anyone else pick up on that or did I misunderstand it?

@Rubi wrote:

I am concerned about having only one date instead of a block of dates. Did anyone else pick up on that or did I misunderstand it?

I found that part to be confusing too. My guess is that we would still be allowed to do block dates, up to whatever the "planned" date is.

@Curious99 wrote:

@mystery2me wrote:

I am still failing to see the big difference...

...
The difference with it now is, I think the rate of decline in pay is going to be greatly accelerated as IPOS seeks to completely eliminate work done in the later part of a work cycle. Instead of continually paying less incentives for work done at the end of a cycle, I think they are looking to pay no deadline based incentives at all. And perhaps people are okay with that, but once they achieve that milestone, it makes me wonder what is next? We might think the base rate of pay we get on shops is safe, but if they can just about completely eliminate incentives, then what is next? Pay shoppers like Alta 360 does? I just don't see an end to it.

I honestly don't see a correlation between extending shop windows and shop pay. The new programs looks more like the old Maritz system than anything elses, where shoppers could self-assign further in advance and end-of-month bonuses were actually better.

Will it give an edge to shoppers who prefer a predictable schedule over higher bonuses, and result in fewer bonuses at the end of the period? Maybe. Or maybe it will be evened out by flakes causing more end-of month bonuses. That's one reason they shortened the windows in the first place.

This doesn't mean shop pay won't keep going down, but I think that would be more a result of other pressures, including wages continuing to decline compared to general economic growth, regular jobs getting replaced by lower-paying gig work, and the increasing prevalence of mobile technology that makes the work accessible to more people.

If it’s run like Presto (which I like) - I’m fine with it.

I’d rather pull into a smallish town with 5-10 gas stations and wipe the slate clean of all of them, drive another hour, repeat in the next town over. $300+ a day is definitely possible with self-assign and some of the other types of work that I do, like video shops. Contact with a scheduler sometimes can take days via email and it’s so frustrating to wait endlessly for a reply.

Bing, bang, boom. Self-assign is my jam.

[double-posted and deleted]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2021 11:20PM by ColoKate63.

I also wanted to add: this is actually an opportunity for us to alter shop pay with some of the notorious chicken-feed MSCs.

I do a lot of routes, and if I pull into a town (let’s say Flagstaff, AZ) that’s difficult to reach - I’m doing all the $18-$30 work I can get my hands on, one after another.

But... that “bonused!” $6 gas station? Without self-assign, I’d be tempted to do it as a filler.

Now, I’m letting that one sit and marinate, all on its lonesome. Ditto for the $5 mattress shop. I’m already off to bigger and better. And good luck getting a shopper up to Flagstaff for $7-8 to do that shop with nothing else to pad that long trip.

@mystery2me wrote:

I am still failing to see the big difference...
I honestly don't see a correlation between extending shop windows and shop pay.

I see the way you are looking at this, but I don’t think it’s that simple, and I don’t think it’s just about extended shopping windows only.

I think the iShopFirst idea is also about encouraging shoppers to more strongly compete against each other. If it wasn’t why call it iShopFirst, why put it in the email “Are you going to be first?” with a little man running in the title of the email? Why does it matter if you are the first to get to a location? What’s wrong with just taking your sweet little time? What’s it to them? These things are intentional.

They didn’t call it something like “Flex-Time Scheduling”, or “Enhanced Self-Assign” and say that we’ve been listening to our shoppers, and appreciate the work that you do, and just wanted to try to make things easier for you by giving you a whole month to get work done on not just some of our programs, but on all of our programs. That we understand some people work full time jobs, are students, or are single parents, or have all sorts of things going on in their life, and just wanted to do something to make things easier for our shoppers because we can, and thought we should. We realize that without you shoppers, we don’t have a business, and we just wanted to do this for you guys just to be nice. Did they say anything like that? No, because it’s not their intention. Their intentions aren’t about considering our well-being, or showing appreciation. It’s about their bottomline.

They want us to rush out, and get work done before the other guy, and just forget about the incentives that might come later on. And this will probably work because a lot of people rather make something than nothing. Especially if they are trying to survive off of this work.

@mystery2me wrote:

The new programs looks more like the old Maritz system than anything elses, where shoppers could self-assign further in advance and end-of-month bonuses were actually better.

Yeah, it’s starting to become that way, with the shopping windows, but it hasn’t always been that way.

It use to be that all Maritz programs were all on the Maritz Legacy Website. Then IPOS took over, and a decision was made to discontinue the use of that website. In it’s place, some programs were put on the Sassie platform, some on the Shopmetrics platform, and some on the Presto platform. The one that they put on the Presto platform, did not have extended shopping windows when it was first launched. When that program was first launched on Presto, you had maybe 20 or 24 hours in which to get everything done.

And as someone that tracks this, I can tell you that the incentives for that program were at their highest during the first quarter in which it was launched on the Presto platform. After that, they appeared to be experimenting the idea of extended shopping windows, and the incentive numbers went down each subsequent quarter. So I think there is a correlation based on what I saw with that one program.

Were there other factors involved? Yes, I believe so. I believe there were increased levels of competition each subsequent quarter that resulted in the work getting done much more quickly, and also IPOS management reducing the incentive amounts for any work that did not get done early on. For example, for the previous quarter, if a location wasn’t done by week 8 into the cycle, maybe it got a $20 incentive added to it. Next quarter, if the same thing happens again at week 8, then maybe the incentive amount is $10 this time, and so on. So those things I believe have been lowering the pay as well. Fewer incentive locations, and lower incentive amounts.

But how does that relate to extended shopping windows? Well, if people are encouraged to be more competitive with one another, and instead of taking 10 shops at a time, like they did with that program on Presto, and they start taking 100 shops or more at a time. Then that’s is going to be that many more shops getting done at the lowest pay rate because they don’t give deadline based incentives early on. So that would be the correlation I think. More shops getting done sooner, because people are desperate to get to them before the other guy, means fewer shops needing to get done later, and therefore less deadline based incentives later. At least for that one program on Presto anyway.

So for some programs, maybe this makes no real difference because that’s how it was before. But for this one program on Presto, at least, I think it does make a difference. For that first month on the one Presto program, I think you’re going to have a lot of hoarding, and that it’s going to work towards IPOS’s benefit because the work will ultimately get done for less. And I don’t think flakes are going to affect that.

@mystery2me wrote:

This doesn't mean shop pay won't keep going down, but I think that would be more a result of other pressures...

As for macro-economic factors playing into this, I don’t think that’s really the case too much here. I think it’s the policies that IPOS management sets, like this iShopFirst idea, and them trying to goad one shopper into taking another shopper's work, that determines our pay more than it is any single other thing.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2021 11:42PM by Curious99.

I’ve let this sit for a few days and watched the video and reread it several times. My reflections are that this purpose of this program is to accomplish 1.) Get more shops done at the beginning of the month to make sure they meet client expectations. 2.) Increase the number of shops done at base rate. 3.) Reduce the number of on staff schedulers and need for scheduling companies. 4.) Reduce bonus shops.

It all seems a little backwards to me. In regards to gas stations shops, the bulk of these are done by route shoppers. Issues with that is a route can’t necessarily by scheduled day by day. I can schedule 30 shops and may have an issue or may be ahead of schedule and can’t commit to one specific date. From what I see you have one date to decide on and it can’t be changed. Taking a chance on letting it go back on the board and re assigning it to yourself is a big deal since not getting it back could mess up your route further. There is no scheduler to call or email to help out. Texas is big. Cities are sometimes hours apart on routes. Weather, traffic, accidents etc can change a route easily. For me I am going to sit and wait. I want to see how it all works before I plan my next route.

IPSOS if you are reading .... Swag, contests, do not make up for pay. We do this for cash to pay bills. Just a thought.

@mmsackett wrote:

... My reflections are that this purpose of this program is to accomplish 1.) Get more shops done at the beginning of the month to make sure they meet client expectations. 2.) Increase the number of shops done at base rate. 3.) Reduce the number of on staff schedulers and need for scheduling companies. 4.) Reduce bonus shops.

I'd say you're right on. Though I believe getting shops done earlier is not so much about meeting client expectations as it is about reducing costs. Money is what I believe they are about first and foremost.

If they have 3 or 4 months to get a gas station shop done, I don't see how it makes that much of a difference if it got done earlier or later beyond the incentive costs that they don't want to pay out. The station owners are still going to get their quarterly inspection reports either way.

@mmsackett wrote:

It all seems a little backwards to me. In regards to gas stations shops, the bulk of these are done by route shoppers. Issues with that is a route can’t necessarily by scheduled day by day.

Totally agree with that, and it's a pain in the butt to try to work all this out in a spreadsheet, and then if something puts you behind re-work it out in the spreadsheet, and so fourth. I think it's much better to just pick a reasonable number of shops to do for the day, and what you don't get to one day, you'll get to the next, and have it be no big deal, as far as route planning goes.

One of the things I find problematic with them is that they are wanting to be a bit too rigid and inflexible in some ways, and expecting people to have everything planned down to the very last detail with "planned" dates.

If I have 70 shops over the course of 2 weeks, my plan may be to do between 5 to 10 shops a day on the days that I work, and not work at all on certain days where it might be raining all day and I don't want to go out. I don't think there should be anything wrong with that. But with "planned" dates, it just overcomplicates things by giving you more deadlines than what you really need to be worrying about. It's much better to just have everything due on one date, and have fewer things to keep up with.

@mmsackett wrote:

...From what I see you have one date to decide on and it can’t be changed. Taking a chance on letting it go back on the board and re assigning it to yourself is a big deal since not getting it back could mess up your route further.

In the future, I'm not sure that they are even going to let you get it back after it goes back to the board. Because they want people to always be getting the work done within that Presto timer, and that's just not always realistic. Especially for route shoppers that have a lot on their plate, and need a lot on their plate just to make enough money when it is at the base rate. I mean, such a shopper could maybe scale down to 2 or 3 shops a day to meet their stringent expectations, but then you might not be making enough money for it to be worth your while. And so it'd be like, what's the point?

It's like they don't realize, the more they lower the pay rate, the harder we have to work to make the same amount of money as before, and that makes it harder to meet deadlines, such as the 12, 20, or 24 hour timer they use on Presto projects.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/22/2021 05:12PM by Curious99.

This is a good route process.

To answer the questions about a "block" of dates - no, whichever date you choose, they assign it "from and to" that date. They do NOT give you a range of dates. So...caution. I learned the lesson the hard way already for a route of shops I needed.