✦ Task type · Research and checks
The part of the purchase you never see
Your checkout ends at the confirmation screen. The customer's purchase continues for another four days, mostly through emails you did not write and a carrier you do not control.
Post-purchase is the longest part of the customer experience and the least observed, because it happens across systems that belong to other companies and generates no analytics you own.
What to put in the public brief
- The country and roughly when they need to be available
- That the task runs across several days
- That they must be able to receive a parcel
- Whether they keep the item
- That records are needed along the way, not only at the end
Keep the store, any codes and the product private.
What to put in the private instructions
Say exactly how to order
Which product, which shipping option, which code. A worker choosing express when you meant standard has tested a different service.
Ask them to screenshot every email as it arrives
With timestamps. The gap between dispatch notice and tracking becoming live is a common and invisible failure.
Ask about the tracking link specifically
Whether it worked immediately, what it said, and whether it ever went stale. Stale tracking generates more support contacts than late delivery does.
Ask for the parcel condition on arrival
Photograph before opening. Damage, over-packaging and a soaked box are all things you are otherwise told about only by the customers annoyed enough to write in.
Proof worth requiring
Ask for
Screenshots of each email with timestamps, the tracking page at two points, a photograph of the parcel as delivered, and the delivery date against the promised one.
Do not ask for
A return. Returning goods purely to test the process consumes real handling cost, and if it is a competitor's shop you are imposing that cost on a business that did not agree to the experiment.
When this task type is the wrong tool
If you already know deliveries are late, this will confirm it expensively. Use it to find out where in the chain the days are going, which requires the timestamps rather than the outcome.
If the problem is before the confirmation screen, that is a checkout test and it costs a fraction of this.
Common questions
Who pays for the order?
You do, either by shipping directly or by supplying a full-discount code. Asking a worker to buy and be reimbursed makes them a lender and prices the risk into the reward, which costs more than covering it up front.
What is actually being measured?
Everything between the confirmation screen and the parcel in a hand: the confirmation email, the dispatch notice, the tracking that works or does not, the carrier handover, the delivery attempt, and the state the parcel arrived in. Most of it is run by other companies on your behalf.
What reward is fair?
Fifteen to thirty dollars, because the task runs over days rather than minutes. They must be reachable for a delivery and record along the way, and that intermittent commitment is what you are paying for.
Can they order from a competitor instead?
Yes, and it is legitimate as long as it is an ordinary retail purchase at the normal price with no misrepresentation. Do not brief returns abuse: ordering to test a returns process and sending it back is a cost you are imposing on someone else's business.
Thinking of taking this task?
The same job, from the other side. Rewards are set by the poster, so treat these as the range this task type usually sits in rather than a promise.
- Usually pays
- $15 to $30
- You need
- A delivery address and availability across several days
- Proof expected
- Screenshots of every email with timestamps, and a photo of the parcel as delivered
Record times as things happen rather than reconstructing at the end. The gap between dispatch notice and working tracking is usually the finding.
Create a worker accountBrief a delivery report
Set the reward and the countries you need. Workers reserve a spot before ordering; the store and any codes stay private until they do.
Post this task