I have been unable to schedule James Avery shops the past couple of times I've tried. I even contacted the MSP directly but never got scheduled. The shop is posted as available but I tried scheduling for every date in range and each one says I can't schedule for that date. So how are we supposed to schedule? If it's not available, why is it showing up as if it is?

Hi Ashley,

Based on what you described this sounds like an issue with how the MSP set up the project. You made the right move by contacting the MSP as they would be the ones able to resolve the issue or manually assign the shop to you.

iSecretShop is always developing new tools and features to ensure a great Shopper experience and the issue you described above was recently addressed, so you should not see this happening very often, if at all.

I hope this helps!

Meghan

Hi, I tried the same shop tonight and got the same issue as Ashley did, any suggestions? Thank you, Cindy

Hey Ashley and Cindy

I had this issue a while back, and I reached out to the iSecretShop tech support team. They told me that it is the way the MSP sets up the shop assignment.

If the MSP desires to have some separation between shopper performing the assignments on different days, the iSecretShop platform allows them to do, but apparently it is not understood by many MSPs.

If you have a 6-day period to perform assignments during, but you want some days between each assignment, then the MSP will set it up wrong by saying I need 3 days between shop assignments, but then if an IC sets the date as the 4th day in the 6-day period. ALL other ICs are blocked. The MSP should adjust the entries so that an IC cannot schedule past the 6th day.

Well life is full of these Gothcha stuff. Best to navigate around them.

Thank you for the information. The more we know, the more we grow!

I had this issue with a shop recently too. I reached out to the scheduler by email and they manually scheduled it for me :)

I had this issue, too, and reached out to the MSP. Never heard back from them but after six months of trying, I FINALLY got to do the shop!

Hey Fellow MSers

I was on a job board and I found this and I immediately thought of you, so here goes...

Here is another list of restrictions that will make an IC disqualified:

Restrictions

You must meet the following qualifications to apply for this shop:

* You cannot have shopped the same location within 30 days

If you meet the following qualifications, you can immediately SELF ASSIGN shops to yourself:

* Your age is from 21 to 30 years

* Your Extended Shopper Profile must meet the requirement(s): Is a valid photo-ID uploaded? is "Yes" 

* You must have the following qualifications: Self Assign

So, it's not all you, well ina way it is, if you have your extended profile filled in, then based on that information you maybe disqualify, or quantity.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for posting 25-30 yrs old.

Did not know there was a age limit. I looked but could not find that information. Now it does stste, you must be at least 18 yrs old and have a high school diploma or GED.

Hi Melissa,

Yes - some shops do have specific age requirements - mostly the age compliance shops, where the purpose is to test whether you will be asked for an ID when purchasing cigarettes or alcohol, so you must be "young enough" for them to think there is a chance you might be under 21.

Other shops may have different requirements, such as gender, if for example you are shopping a female hair salon, etc.

Shops with such requirements as age and gender will not even show up on the available Shops page to shoppers that do not meet those requirements, so as to simplify things and make other shops easier to see.

In any case, checking the shop reqirements is always a good idea, and if you try to self-assign or request a shop and the system is not allowing you to do so, you should be able to see an error message stating the exact reason why. If you still think there is a chance that scheduling conflict can be resolved/bypassed, you should contact the MSP and their schedulers will let you know if it's possible to get that shop assigned to you.

Thanks!