OK Temporary Way to Earn Extra Income But That's It
Pros
If you're looking for short-term supplemental income and don't mind traveling to different work sites (stores) and dealing with crowds, Retail Data may be a good fit. It’s certainly not the worst place to work, but just know what you’re getting into before you make the time investment. If you treat it just as a temporary way to make some extra money in addition to your main job/career, it’s fine. Don’t place any expectations on it beyond that. The District Manager and RA Leads I worked with were usually friendly, supportive, encouraging, and provided good communication. Training for each job was decent and either my DM or the leads were usually available to answer any questions or concerns I had. The schedule is mostly flexible although you are required to be available at least 15 hours per week. If you live in a larger city or in an area with few to no other RAs, you can be assigned a decent amount of work. Overall, the work itself is easy and it doesn't take that long to achieve their metrics requirements for each type of job. Some of the jobs require you to purchase items from a store (using a company credit card) and you get to keep the items. You also can receive quarterly rewards (points you can redeem for gift cards) based on your performance (speed, SKU accuracy, jobs submitted on time, etc.).
Cons
No PTO accrual. RAs are all part-time and the only way to make more money or move into full time is to take on more jobs for the company (if jobs are even available) or apply for a Lead RA position (this is a very rare opportunity). Management constantly preached to RAs how if we work faster to complete jobs, we earn more per hour and are more available to take on additional jobs. This became somewhat redundant as there are usually a very limited number of jobs to complete in each area and typically more than one RA in the area. Depending on where you live and how many clients RetailData has in your area, you may be stuck with only a small amount of jobs or need to travel several miles out of the area to get work. Considering the pay is based on number of items scanned and number of prices collected (literally pennies per item), it's usually not worth the time and wear and tear on your vehicle to seek jobs outside of your town or city. They do pay mileage and drive time but only after 30 miles round trip or 30 minutes of drive time and the rate is at least 10 cents lower than the IRS standard mileage reimbursement rate (management has been informed of this several times but nothing has changed). Therefore, a good chunk of the money you earn may be going right back into your gas tank. Different types of collection jobs are paid at different piece rates (undercover or "lapel" jobs pay slightly more than others) and when an item can either not be found, is not sold at the store you're sent to, or a price cannot be collected, you're actually paid less for that even though this isn't the RA's fault and you're still collecting accurate data for the client. You're given a pay detail report outlining all your completed jobs and pay rate for each along with mileage and drive time breakdown but some of it can be confusing to understand (the basic training on these reports is insufficient). Most of the jobs you're assigned require you to appear as a shopper in the store and collect pricing data incognito since RetailData isn't technically authorized to be in their store. This can make for an anxious situation especially when you can be kicked out by store management at any time and some of the jobs can take hours to collect. It can be challenging to work quickly when you're constantly needing to be on the lookout for staff or management in the area watching you. Of course we don't look suspicious at all spending several minutes in the same aisle or area of the store trying to collect prices on 50+ different items while typing into a device that doesn't remotely resemble a mobile phone and has a visible scanner on top! If you are asked to leave a store, RetailData still requires you to return before the job's due date to finish the job if they can't find a backup location to send you to (jobs are usually due 4-5 days after they start which is a small window, in my opinion). To me, this isn't worth the risk of being banned from a store you may already shop at or want to shop at one day. One of the "lapel" jobs I used to do monthly required me to collect several hundred prices and would usually take around an hour or two. Due to their piece-rate pay policy, I was actually paid BELOW minimum wage for this job which is insulting especially when you have to deal with possibly being questioned by asset protection or store management. The work itself eventually becomes very tedious and boring. Referring to this position as a "Research Associate" is a bit excessive and inappropriate since you're literally just collecting prices of items and/or scanning UPCs, you're not "researching" much. It's practically an insult to real researchers in various fields. Some of the job lists can also be a pain to navigate as items are placed in the wrong categories or have poor descriptions. Even when we give feedback about this (as we're encouraged to do) the lists are rarely ever improved. You work alone most of the time, which may not be an issue for some people, but it makes it difficult to feel truly connected to the company and feel a sense of community/comradery. Jobs can be cancelled or removed from your schedule at any time with little to no notice (i.e. if a client suddenly cancels a job in an area, if another RA in your town or city needs more hours to reach the 15-hour/week minimum, etc). Don’t expect steady income with this job. This is why it would be more suitable as side income. Lastly, dealing with crowds at stores (especially during the holidays and back-to-school time), inconsiderate customers who don’t respect your personal space (I’ve lost count of how many times someone either coughed or sneezed right next to me, or walked up and reached right in front of my face to grab an item off the shelf without just saying “Excuse me” and before I had a chance to politely step aside), and messy/disorganized stores overall made this job less appealing to me and definitely not worth the lower pay in my opinion.
