Maximising income - Mystery Shopping? Surveys? (Part Three)

Sarah_Joanne

bulktrans wrote: »

URGENT HELP i did an assignment for betting shop today and forgot to take down the Shop name and Area name in the Excellence in Customer Service poster; could some one be kind enough to tell me what i can write plz help i have to submit my results by tonight thnx.

Just a friendly word of warning - Please be careful entering shop names on here! By agreeing to do the shop you have agreed to keep these details confidential, and I have read in previous posts that the MS companies keep an eye on these boards.

Becles

rbulph wrote: »

Are there auditing companies that operate like mystery shopping companies, i.e. where you're freelance and just sign up for jobs as you feel like it?

Yes - I do auditing and merchandising work ad hoc for agencies, just like mystery shopping. I have to take photographs of products and fixtures, and I get strange looks from people like you

Today I've been working for two different companies. One job was counting the shelf space and products on the shop floor, and counting the stock in the warehouse. Then I had to check for bookstock errors on the stock inventory system and correct it where necessary. I had to pull the warehouse stock onto the shop floor and fill up the fixture, and then speak to the department manager for his comments about recent sales and some changes the company are making.

The second job was an audit of another grocery item. They wanted to know the number of bays devoted to that type of product and how many metres of shelving in each bay. Then I had to count how many of that brands items were on the shelf, and note how many facings, their position in the bay and check that they were all in date. Finally they wanted to know how many facings and the position of a number of competitor lines and if they had any promotions or other POS material to encourage people to buy them instead.

Tomorrow I'm working for another company who already have stands in store. I've got some new updated panels to go on the stands. I'll have to replace those and add stock to the stand if necessary, check it has price labels and encourage the store to order any out of stock items.

On Friday, I've got some FSDU's (those cardboard temp stands) to assemble in stores, print price labels and other POS material, site them in a high footfall area and fill them with stock.

Hope that gives you an idea of what the jobs involve. It's the same as MS work in that I can't name the brand I'm working for etc.

The panels and FSDU's have been sent to my home, so you need storage space and a suitable car do to some jobs.

You also need good communication skills as you have to speak with a wide range of store staff such as shelf stackers, stock controllers, managers and so on.

The downsides are you have to be quite persuasive at times, especially when some dragon manager insists that the stand is not going in his store, and sometimes you get the flack if the store is having problems with that brand. You also have to put up with random customers asking you where things are as they assume you are store staff!

As with MS work, watch the fees as they vary wildly. Some companies pay just a fee, some pay mileage/parking too, and some pay travelling time as well as time in store.

Jo4

I am surprised that someone has not created a spreadsheet for mystery shoppers or does this exist?

learning_to_drive

Requested a ton of jobs with BAI, obviously their scheduler is busy! Email jobs etc.

Picked another aquaeous bookmaker (have won of 3 out of 4 times now!), some pizza jobs and a greasy chicken jobs.

Also got a couple of phone jobs this Saturday, seems to be a boom in jobs at the minute.

Then got a job with ISC doing Lidl's main competition, so a busy few days for me!


RE must have shoppers aplenty in my area because i rarely get the jobs.

samtastic7

'1.Visit the store and enquire about a a mobile phone that will enable you to listen to music.'


this is pasted from my paperwork from gap, do they not use word /spell check. lol

Sarah_Joanne

Who are ISC please Learning to Drive?

samtastic7

Sarah_Joanne wrote: »

Who are ISC please Learning to Drive?

a firm who wnat to to write a very long essay of the visit then answer the questions and you have already said it all in the write up. not the esiest of paperwork to do.

Mithvingiel

Ok I'm new to all this mystery shopping and I'm a little unclear about the how tax thing.

My husband works full-time and earns £15,000, I don't work at all other than the occasional MS. Will the total taxable earnings include what my husband earns or just mine? I earn currently about £10-20 a month through mystery shopping and I'm really unclear as to what I need to apply for with the Inland Revenue!

Please help?!

Sarah_Joanne

Mithvingiel wrote: »

Ok I'm new to all this mystery shopping and I'm a little unclear about the how tax thing.

My husband works full-time and earns £15,000, I don't work at all other than the occasional MS. Will the total taxable earnings include what my husband earns or just mine? I earn currently about £10-20 a month through mystery shopping and I'm really unclear as to what I need to apply for with the Inland Revenue!

Please help?!

Your tax only applies to yourself, so it doesn't matter how much your husband makes.

You will need to register as self employed and declare all your earnings, although only making £10-20 a month means you won't need to pay tax or national insurance. See the first post in this thread for more details

Mithvingiel

Sarah_Joanne wrote: »

Your tax only applies to yourself, so it doesn't matter how much your husband makes.

You will need to register as self employed and declare all your earnings, although only making £10-20 a month means you won't need to pay tax or national insurance. See the first post in this thread for more details

One more question - will this effect tax credits?