OOOOOOOOH, and just one day later, $12.50. This is kind of fun.

It was taken today at $12.50. Now for those of who know how to play the CORI game better than I do, does this mean it will rise more quickly next time?

I just always took it at $5plus $5 reimbursement because it is 3 blocks away, and doesn't take long.

Many questions I already know the answers to, like are the hours posted on the door?
I could always find a cleaning product I needed besides.

Congratulations!
Now, later this week the August shop will be available, if it's not already there at the ridicu-low price. On August 1 or shortly thereafter, it will have its first increase, which should be significantly more than the 26 cents or 12 cents that started this thread, maybe "starting" at $5.80-$6.25.
The frequency of increase will not change, so "rising more quickly" in this case really means rising more each time.
I don't know what the re-shop timeframe is for shoppers for this client, but if it's thirty days, and since you seem to only have one competitor shopper for this location, you could wait until August 28 to take the shop for yourself, at which point it should be a lot more than $12.50 since it will be starting higher.
However, as soon as it passes $12.50, it may be enough to lure a third shopper into your area - your cheapest competition was $12.50, but there will be others. The next cheapest competitor may have been waiting for it to hit $13 or $25 or... who knows?
It's pretty safe, though, to say that you can wait until it approaches $12.50 to take it in August. Since you seem to have been diligent in checking the price regularly, you could probably even be safe in taking it at the first increase beyond $12.50 if you can be certain to catch it before anyone else does.
The only radical uncertainty that could scuttle your strategy would be for a newly registered shopper to pop up in your neighborhood and change the calculus by taking that as one of their first shops, not knowing what the (newly discovered) going price is.
Have fun getting to know the Cori game and learning how to win at this particular location! I have a GS shop that is basically "my" shop, going two months out of three to me for $20-28, but since it's a 45-day re-shop, I have to let it go to someone else every third month for $30+ because that's what it take to lure someone so far out into the sticks (but that boosts the price for me again for the next month.)

Hey, thanks for the explanation. I really appreciate it. This appears to be an every other month or quarterly shop, so I will wait to see what happens. thanks again.

elcarev68, I don't agree that it will go above 12.50 next round at all.
The system they use does not make the price ever go above what it
previously was taken for unless it is near the deadline and they manually
boost remaining shops to certain predetermined numbers. It will increase
at alittle faster rate next time so if first increase last time was 5.25 this time
it may be 5.65 but in the end the system will try to get it done for under
12.50...I see it all the time where a shop was taken for say 19 dollars last month
now this month when it gets to that same raise point the raise will be 18.20 to
get it taken for a few cents less. Mutiply that over thousands of shops and
it puts more in their pocket...

Tech -
I follow your logic, but I don't think it's played out in my experience. I'll see if I can check some of my spreadsheets (I've been trying to figure out the exact increase formula for a while), but I know with 100% certainty that several of my regular shops will consistently go over what I took them for when I'm out of rotation.

elcarev68 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tech -
> I follow your logic, but I don't think it's played
> out in my experience. I'll see if I can check
> some of my spreadsheets (I've been trying to
> figure out the exact increase formula for a
> while), but I know with 100% certainty that
> several of my regular shops will consistently go
> over what I took them for when I'm out of
> rotation.


But that is because they have gone for higher amounts as you
said above when you don't do them...her case is different where
this will be the highest amount it went for.

The closest I've been able to get to finding a pattern is that the starting price (the price after the first increase, i.e. the first real price after the ridicu-low pre-rotation flat rate) is based on a percentage of the previous month's closing prices (or an average of a certain number of previous months.) After that, each increase is a percentage increase for all shops of the same client, with the percentage seemingly determined by a factored ratio of the number of days since that last increase divided by the number of days left in the rotation (until the client price cap is hit).
If that's true (and I'm not entirely certain that it is) then a higher (first-increase) starting price will always yield a higher price on any given day of the month than the same day in the previous month.
This holds true in the one shop I most greatly consider my own. Anony-shopper got it in April for $29.50 near the end of the month. May 1 the starting price is $15. I take it May 13 at $21. June 1 the starting price is $13. I wait till my 45 re-shop is over and take it on June 26 for $27. August 1 the starting price is $14.75. I can't get it at all in August because of my 45-day re-shop wait. Anony-shopper gets lured in to take the shop in the last days of August for $29. Sept. 1 the starting price is $14.90. I get it on Sept. 12 for $20.50.
That pattern has been holding true for over a year.

I think one must be a math professor to get this at all, it is way over my head............... but great to read, thanks!

57carol -
Let us know what the first increase is for August, what it eventually goes for, and what it is on August 22 (unless you've taken it by then.)

Ok - can someone explain the phenomena of the shops that are listed in the "Commission Increases" email that arrives early morning and the disappearance of said shops by the noon ? They aren't there with a B in front of them - they just aren't there at ALL. Of course these are the very high paying ones that someone would be certain to take by day's end.

Now why offer and increase and then pull them before everybody gets a chance to look ?

Is it a case of if they are not snapped up by a certain time they get pulled for review?

I had the exact same problem...two shops were emailed to me with huge bonuses. I went to the board to assign them...GONE, not even on the board.
I called in and spoke to a scheduler. I was assigned the shops by him.

Give it a try. They could still be available.

Good luck!

Thanks - if I can make a route out if it I will contact them. Just wish I could make heads or tails out of the system.