MSPA

www.mspa-na.org

Select Become an Independent Contractor to create a login. Free & paid membership options as well as certifications.

Cheers!

Question on Filing Taxes

That is the safest strategy. Remember to expense transportation/mileage as well. Welcome.

How do you turn in your shop?Is it by email?

You can complete the report online or on the mobile app. When its complete, click on the submit "Finalize" button at the top of the webpage or in the Submit button on the mobile app.

I need help with the app.. i

So you hit the request button, you choose the appropriate date to conduct the shop & then press the submit button, right? At that point you will get one of many possible responses which indicates the day is invalid, to choose another date, the "shop has been requested" or the "shop was self-assigned". For the last response the shop will appear in Assigned shops & the previous response, the "shop has been requested", the shop will appear in the Requested shops. You are receiving one of those last 2 messages & not finding it in either section of the mobile app? Have you logged onto the website to see if they appear in either of these sections? There are reasons why a shop cannot be scheduled such as specific demographics, but the app will state that the shop could not be assigned. This has happened with multiple mystery shop providers? Finally, are you immediately checking the Requested shops after one has been successfully requested? If you wait more than a few hours then its possible that you didn't receive the shop & it's been cleared from the system. Final final thought is, there may be a delay when the mobile app fetches the list, wait at least 30 seconds after the "Fetching..." notification disappears. If you are not seeing the "Fetching..." notification at all there may be an issue with the app. So if you are seeing a confirmation that the shop was requested & is not immediately listed in the Requested shops list or the "Fetching..." dialog is not appearing, then you should issue.a help ticket from the Ticket System. Hopefully I covered everything.

Frustrated. Phone/web shops showing as available but aren't

So one issue that I think has not been really uncovered is that the schedulers may add a few more shop requests than days available. This could be because the shop date range runs over days of the week that the shop cannot be conducted, like weekends or possibly there is another reason they add more shop requests than will be available. I have no answer to this but know that this happens & I feel your frustration with those situations.

Frustrated. Phone/web shops showing as available but aren't

Are you checking for shops daily? I noticed that you mentioned at the end of the month or when the app badges appear. Really, if you wait until the app badge indicates new jobs are available then you’ve missed most of them. I check the website or app daily for iSecretShop & other providers. I follow up on email blasts but find that by that time the jobs are gone especially in competitive areas like where I live in San Diego. Check daily, even a couple of times daily since new jobs appear at anytime. It’s also worth mentioning that if you are new or have not conducted many shops that your lower seniority means that you will see new jobs only after others have seen them. Another way to get seniority has been to become a member of the MSPA-NA. They offer a free & Plus (paid annual membership). I try to keep it current though I don’t know if the paid membership has advantages over the free. What has been explicitly clear from many MSPs is that completing even 1 certification online will help shoppers get more jobs because it shows them that you have a good background in conducting mystery shops. Additionally iSecretShop has a few free certifications as well as a $10 course. I haven’t asked if these are seen by schedulers but I assume that they are & again the education might get you more shops. Well, I think that I’ve regurgitated every piece of info that I know about improving chances of getting more jobs. My fingers are tired typing on my mobile device now. :-) Cheers!

Tara_NJ @ Aug 27, 2018 9:56:26 PM

Hi Candace! There was a few months back in May and June I guess (can't remember now) that a ton of web/phone shops were available. Not right now though... It comes in waves I guess :)

Candace_15211973559854 @ Jun 2, 2018 10:22:08 AM

Tara_NJ @ May 27, 2018 5:25:57 PM

I am getting really frustrated with the time it is taking to try and apply for shops that are listed as available only to pop up as taken. It's really starting to take a toll on my patience. Why can't available shops just show dates available? Why do we have to play the guessing game when trying to apply for available shops? 98% of the 220+ available web and phone shops listed as available right now actually aren't available. It takes me literally at least an hour to go through the web and phone shops just to find out most if not all are already scheduled and not available. Why do we have to go clicking through every date listed as available on each shop just to get a pop up stating "Another shopper is already assigned to perform this shop, please choose a date x days apart"?

I've actually stopped trying to apply for shops at the end of the month as soon as I see the pop ups starting because it so time consuming and fruitless.

I know people in this forum have suggested emailing the scheduler/msp and just request one of the available shops. I've done that especially this past week and never got a reply. I know they're crazy busy at this time of month but seriously this is really a problem.

Thanks for listening to me vent! I know I'm a bit cranky right now but I'm trying to apply for shops which should be the easy part and it's turning into the hardest.

How do you find that many web shops? Thank you.