Get paid to scan your shopping (shopandscan.com)

Member Name: gemagems

Product:	shopandscan.com
Date:	10/06/06 (1826 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Save up vouchers for christmas or spend them when you fancy

Disadvantages: You have to recieve an email invitation to join

ShopAndScan is a fab site that I have recently managed to join.

I received an email invitation from out of nowhere! I must have clicked on something when I was on the Internet that took my details! HMMMM Not really sure how it came about… but I will explain what happens!

What's it all about?

Shopandscan is part of the TNS group, which also has a survey site with paid surveys. I have been a member of this for a few years so maybe that's how I came to be invited to shopandscan! I have always received some good rewards from TNS so I though I would give shopandscan a go! Basically with shopandscan you scan all your shopping and earn rewards by sending your barcodes through a clicker!

The First Stage

Once you receive an email invitation (which includes a four digit code) You log onto www.shopandscan.com and click on register you then insert your invitation number and submit it. You the have to go through the usual rigmarole of entering your

- Name
- Address
- Email address
- Phone numbers
- Names of others in your household

Then about 24 hours later I received an email saying that I was now a member and that I would soon be receiving my information back and my clicker.

The Clicker

I now hear you all asking what exactly the clicker is - well I shall explain all.

Four days later a large, conspicuous brown paper envelope came through my letterbox. The envelope contained

- My clicker
- A letter to say thank you for joining the shopandscan consumer panel
- A USB cable
- A five page laminated booklet held together by a metal ring

The clicker is a scanner for barcodes, basically a smaller version of what is used in shops to scan barcodes. It is in fact about five cms long and 2 wide, so very small. It's very simple to use and well explained about how to use it. You basically press a button to scan the barcodes on all of your shopping! Before joining you should click on the 'register' link on the homepage of shopandscan and making sure that your pc is compatible.

Below is a list of requirements

- Your computer should not be Apple Mac
- Windows 95 and 200 are not compatible
- You need Microsoft explorer

What Happens when you are a Fully Fledged Member?

Once you receive all of your bits through the post you are ready to go.

The first page of the laminated booklet is a light blue colour. I have registered my partner and me so I can submit the barcodes that my partner purchases. The blue page has the names of everybody in your household. When you are going to submit a barcode you first click on the name of the person who has made the purchase (all names have a barcode next to them).

The next page is simply a personal user guide. This gives information on how to scan and how to connect the clicker to the computer.

The next two pages are double sided and are yellow. These pages contain the names of many different shops and different types of shops

- Supermarkets/superstores (Tesco, Sainsburys, Asdas etc)
- Convienince/small grocers (costcutter, Londis etc)
- Freezer centres (Iceland, Farm foods etc)
- Specialist food shops (Bakers, Butchers etc
- Home and Garden (B&Q, Homebase etc)
- Large stores (Argos, Wilkinsons etc)
- Drinks (Off License etc)
- Newsagents/bookshops (WH Smith etc)
- Chemists (Boots, Lloyds etc)
- Pet shops (Pets at Home etc)
- Drug stores (Superdrug etc)
- Health food shops (Holland and Barret etc)
- Other shops (Avon, Bodyshop etc)

Again each shop has a barcode next to it to scan and if the shop you went to isn't listed there is always an 'other' option to scan. This is the next stage; you have to scan the shop you went to.

The next page is again double sided and contains a list of receipt prices in £1 - £2 pound etc format! This starts from 0p to £300 and over. This is the last stage and then once all of these have been scanned you scan the barcodes of the items you have purchased.
When written out it seems like an extremely long process but for an average weekly food shop it actually only takes 10 minutes to do everything and a minute (if that) when you have purchased only a couple of items.

The clicker bleeps when scanning to assure you that you have scanned properly. You have to scan the length of each barcode and occasionally it doesn't work but you will not it hasn't worked by the lack of the bleep.

Submitting your Barcodes

You store all of your barcodes in your clicker until a Sunday, when you then plug your clicker into your computer and transfer your barcodes by clicking on 'transmit your barcodes' on the homepage of shopandscan and inserting our panel number, which appears on the top of the blue page.

This process takes about 5 seconds in all and the clicker will beep a few times whilst transmitting your codes. The screen will then tell you that your codes have been received.

What Happens Next?

You will then soon receive an email telling you that you received 1000 points (equivalent to £1) for that week's transmission. The very first time you do it you receive a leaflet through the post telling you that you can have 10 000 points for the first time (equivalent to £10) and at £10 you can receive a £10 voucher of your choice - not bad for 10 mins work! The vouchers available are

· American Golf · Arcadia (Burtons, Top Shop, Top Man, Dorothy Perkins, Evans, Wallis, Miss Selfridge) · Argos · Debenhams · Dixons · Homebase · House of Fraser · JJB Sports · Kingfisher (B&Q, Woolworths, Comet) · Leisure Vouchers (Beefeater, Pizza Hut, Brewsters, Legoland, Warner, British Holidays, Hoseasons, Haven Holidays etc.) · Next · Red Letter Days · Thomas Cook · Ticketmaster · UCI Cinemas · Virgin Megastore


So plenty of choice. It then takes 10 weeks to receive another voucher. So long as you transmit your codes every week.

Pros

It may not sound like a lot of money for 10 weeks work but you can save the vouchers up for Christmas and have about £50 worth of vouchers.

This site is much more fun than the usually survey sites where you sit for 20 minutes filling out a questionnaire! This is something that can be done quickly after shopping. Even let the kids scan for you, as children love playing shop!

Cons

The main problem with this site is signing up if you do not receive an invitation, but I suppose this is so not everybody joins as I suppose they are trying to find a sample number of people, as they want to find out consumer habits, It would probably be a bit much if millions of people joined.

You could though always try emailing them at - helpdesk@shopandscan.com

All in all this is a fantastic way of earning a few extra vouchers for Christmas; just finding an invitation in your email box is the hard part!

Summary: Easy to use, good saving scheme for xmas presents