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Ipsos blue hardware store shops has improved

June 22, 2023 11:10PM
No more purchase and return. Just purchase. That purchase and return part of the task was brutal because it can expose you as a mystery shopper. I think the blue hardware store staff would notice that there’s a dummy that keeps coming in and buying and returning stuff 20 minutes later.

Speaking of that 20 minute wait, that was excruciating and I’m glad that’s gone. I want to be able to move on to the next thing. I don’t want to have to sit around for 20 minutes to return something.

Personally, I love shopping at hardware stores and their requirement killed me.
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June 23, 2023 02:11AM
@AWhitman It's good that the return is not part of the shop for the time being. The MSP or others here suggested going in to make the purchase first, drop it in your car, and then go in to make your two department visit to eat up the 20 minutes.

Didn't this shop have a base of $18 before and now it is $16? I suppose they are using the small item reimbursement of $2 as part of the fee for the shop. Now the trick is to find out what this store sells for under $2 that will be useful to you so that you don't go into your pocket to fulfill the shop.

The last two rounds haven't lasted long on the boards. I've waited in the past for bonuses since the wait for both departments could be much longer than you anticipated and before you know it, an hour has passed.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/2023 11:32AM by heywave.
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June 23, 2023 08:39AM
@heywave I think you need to edit your post because you name the client and the MS company is named in the title of this thread.

Regarding what to purchase for $2.00, in my area it looks like I could get a small bottle of water or Planters peanuts for just under $2.00.
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June 26, 2023 01:54AM
You might be able to get a small roll of packing tape to use for the shipping shops.

And I agree, you could easily be waiting for an hour to interact with the two departments, especially if there's a customer in front of you.
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June 26, 2023 02:06AM
If you had to wait more than 20 or 25 minutes for an associate to arrive in one department, then the guidelines say that this one department visit is considered complete. They don't say if your pay will be diminished if no associate arrives after the time limit.

If an associate is helping other customers, you have to wait. If this is your first department, you could go to the other one to hopefully save time, but if it is you final department, then you are stuck and your hourly wage plummets.
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June 26, 2023 11:35AM
Unlike convenience stores, you can easily find stuff for under the reimbursement, so that's good. Whether you actually want or need those items is a different story. I like the tape idea. You can always stock up on nuts & bolts for, like, 10 cents each.
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June 26, 2023 12:50PM
Not sure of the prices now, but when these were around with the other (defunct) company, I always bought a single roll of toilet paper or a small bottle of dish soap.
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June 29, 2023 12:56AM
I wouldn’t do these. They lowered the pay $2. $18 was low pay. $16 was my breaking point. Do msc realize prices are going up on everything but shopper pay?
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June 29, 2023 02:28AM
@Babsshop - Who are you telling? You are preaching to the choir. They certainly know as does the cheap client. A lot of people seem to think EVERYONE does mystery shopping and auditing as a side hustle and could just stop by the locations and do a shop alongside their daily agenda. Some do that, but many have a business of such. If the good and accurate information, along with photographs, etc., is so important to the client and to their business, what makes them think that data is cheap? I do not get it.
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July 01, 2023 05:41PM
@AWhitman wrote:

No more purchase and return. Just purchase. That purchase and return part of the task was brutal because it can expose you as a mystery shopper. I think the blue hardware store staff would notice that there’s a dummy that keeps coming in and buying and returning stuff 20 minutes later.

Speaking of that 20 minute wait, that was excruciating and I’m glad that’s gone. I want to be able to move on to the next thing. I don’t want to have to sit around for 20 minutes to return something.

Personally, I love shopping at hardware stores and their requirement killed me.

I learned while do one of this brands locations for another as a competitor shop, that it took 20 minutes for your purchase to show up on the system.

I've done three of these shops this month. Not hard, but my last one was a dozy. In both departments, the associates engaged, then left me. I was at a conundrum. Had I met the requirement? In both cases, I re-engaged and completed my interaction.

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.
Richard Feynman-- letter to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, published in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005) p. 230
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July 09, 2023 03:19PM
Yeah but now they reduced the pay from $18 to $16. It wasn’t worth it at $18.
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