my shop request was declined... like wth

Hi Vondele,

There could be various reasons why a shop request gets declined, and it's a very common occurrence.

The most likely reason is that the shop was assigned to another shopper - in that case, the requests for that shop from all other shoppers are automatically declined. The schedulers are making the decisions of whose requests are approved, based on several factors - primarily the requested date and the shopper badges.

• The requested date is important since the MSPs and their clients need their shops done as soon as possible, so those shoppers that request shops for the earliest available dates are the ones whose requests are most often approved.
• The shopper badges tell the schedulers what kind of a shopper you are, and what can they expect - they show how experienced the shopper is overall (reflected in the Reputation badge level), how much experience they've had in that specific shop category (reflected in the level of the specialty badge for that shop category, like Retail for example), how reliable they are (reflected in the Reliability and Quality badges), how long has the shopper been using iSecretShop platform (reflected in the Legacy badge) and if they were recognized by schedulers/editors for standing out in some regard (by having badges like Grammarian, Last Minute Assist, etc).

Schedulers also sometimes decline requests even only one shopper has requested the shop - if they are confident that they can get the shop scheduled soon and do not wish to assign the shop to that shopper - it can happen if the requested date is too far away, or if the shop was requested for the same day when the request was made (schedulers can then think that the shopper would not have enough time to prepare adequately for the shop), or if the shopper that requested it is not sufficiently experienced, etc.

I hope this provides some clarification :)

Cheers!