Are Grocery Store Assignments Worth Your Time?

The condensed answer to this question is yes and no. In many cases, a grocery store assignment will consist of you visiting every department in the store, and possibly restrooms and restaurants if they have them. A grocery store assignment can take some serious time to complete, and in many cases the pay can be fairly minimal for the time and effort involved. To make a grocery store assignment worth your time and effort, you have to be fairly discerning in your selection of assignments.

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Choose Your Location Wisely. The good news about a grocery store assignment is that this is a place you shop at regularly, and a place where you typically “need” to purchase something on your visit. Many grocery store assignments in urban areas can get away with paying less for a mystery shop assignment than those in outlying or rural areas. If you choose to accept an assignment at a lower-paying urban location, you may want to ensure this is a grocery store you regularly shop at or otherwise one that is not too far away. While you may already have a trip to the grocery store planned, there is extra time required to hit all of the various departments and you want to ensure your efforts are well-compensated.

A rural location is not necessarily a poor choice of assignments. Rural grocery store assignments may pay you up to twice as much to complete. If you already live in a suburb, some of the “rural” locations may only be 20-40 minutes in the opposite direction from town, and the extra pay you will receive may make up for your travel time. Just remember, as always, to track your mileage so you can write it off as a business expense on your tax returns.

What’s Involved? Many of the lower-paying urban grocery store assignments may require more effort from you than the rural grocery store assignments. Many of the urban grocery stores have almost every department you can imagine – from separate meat, deli, and seafood counters, to a staffed beauty department, pharmacy, bakery, and even an in-store restaurant. Whereas many rural grocery stores may combine their meat, deli, and seafood departments into one counter, and usually will not have staffed beauty department or on-site restaurant. What this means for you is that a rural grocery store may not have as much work required as an urban grocery store. Of course, there are some rural grocery stores that serve as a hub for many surrounding rural cities and may have all of these departments. So do some thorough research before you accept a grocery store assignment so you know exactly how much work is required for that location.

Kill Two Birds. Likely you already have a trip to the grocery store planned for sometime that week. In many cases, with grocery store assignments, you are required to purchase an item from each department or make a minimum number of purchases that cannot be returned. So the good news with any grocery store assignment is that you can take care of your personal errands and earn money at the same time.

If You’re Making the Trip…. Often, if you choose to make a trip to a rural grocery store, you can either find another assignment in that same city or en route to that city. If you plan your trip wisely, you can make the most of your travel time by completing multiple assignments on  your road trip.

The bottom line is that grocery store assignments are great because they involve a “chore” you typically have to complete on a weekly basis. But to make the most of your time and effort with this type of assignment,  you should do some extra research and planning to yield the biggest profits.

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