Hi, i am new to secret shop and i would like to have some tips and tricks to being a GOOD shopper!!

Hi Idrissa,

Welcome aboard! You can find a summary of a lot of great tips on this thread in the forum:

https://www.secretshopforum.com/thread/1/2/94/pro-tips-for-those-who-want-to-be-the-best-shoppers

I hope that helps!

Aloha from Hawaii,

Just joined and I am having fun. Got a question or two. I know the policy is that we can only cancel 3 assignments or we face a penalty.

Cancelling three Assigned Shops may result in your removal from the iSS program.

What if the reason for cancelling was car trouble and that once it gets fixed you are willing to go to the assignment. Do they take these into consideration?

Hi Cyanne,

I have personally never witnessed/heard of someone being removed or suspended from the entire system due to cancellations, in a very long time. However, here is what does happen and what the actual consequences are:

Whenever you cancel assignments (or they get canceled or declined), you automatically lose shopper points. This can have different effects:

a) If you are completing a bunch of shops and they are getting approved, your score is rising, etc - canceling a shop or two every once in a while due to circumstances is not that much or a big deal at all. Of course, informing schedulers about it in a timely manner is always a good and recommended thing to do.

b) If you have only ever completed a couple of shops, and you start canceling multiple ones, your shopper score can become negative (when the number of negative points from cancellations surpasses the positive points from completed shops), and this will cause 2 things:

-It will prevent you from self-assigning shops until your score goes back into positive (you can still request as many as you want, but not self-assign)

-It can make schedulers reluctant to approve your requests for shops and assign shops to you (they will see the negative score and sometimes check your recent activity and when they see multiple cancellations recently, they might hesitate to assign the shop).

On rare occasions, when a shopper has a deeply negative score and a bad reputation for cancelations, MSPs sometimes place bans on those shopper's profiles preventing them from seeing their shops in the system.

All that said, I don't think that canceling a few shops will be a problem for you or anyone as long as you continue to be an active, reliable shopper overall.

And one more thing - the MSP schedulers/editors have the ability to restore lost points if they deem it appropriate, though this is rarely done (for example, they do it when an issue on their end causes the shopper to be unable to complete the shop), but you can always ask.

I hope this helps!

Request shops.

Why can't I just get them

Hello Joanne,

Many shops can be self-assigned (basically just taken without having to request them), and the total number of self-assigned shops you can have at any one time will increase as you reach higher shopper levels.

As for getting your requests approved, that will depend on many factors - how many shoppers requested the same shop(s), for which date did you and others request the shop(s), your experience in a certain category of shops, and various others.

Thanks for asking!

New member here and looking forward to the "job." My first assignment was not up too snuff but a great learning exercise. Best of luck to all!