Consumer Village Review by Survey Satrap

If you have been reading Survey Satrap for a while, you know that I don’t just talk about famous and well-known panels, which by the way Consumer Village isn’t one of them, like most so called paid survey “review” sites who only talk about sites that pay them a commission for referring new members.

Consumer Village is one of those smaller and lesser-known survey panels that usually no one writes about, which is why I felt the need to write about this particular panel and many others like it.

 

Consumer Village, Who?

Established in 2007, Consumer Village is owned and operated by Gongos Research, which also happens to be among the best market research companies out there.

Gorgos also possesses membership of a number of reputed market research firms like AAPOR (American Association for Public Opinion Research), MSPA (Mystery Shopping Providers Association) etc.

Once you sign-up, you’ll be sent invitations regularly for a wide variety of surveys, community discussions, internet focus groups and even polls sponsored by companies. Every time you take part in one of these surveys or online discussions, you are rewarded with tokens. Eventually, you can convert these tokens into gift cards for use on Amazon.com.

Getting Started

Anyone residing in the USA can join CV, provided he/she is at least 18 years old. While joining, a brief questionnaire will be put to you consisting of questions related to your age, gender, educational level, employment, racial background, pets (if you own one) and a few more. Typically, this questionnaire doesn’t take more than 10 minutes to get through.

However, you can’t skip answering this questionnaire. This is because most of their client companies and manufacturers are interested in collating inputs from specific kinds of demographics.

These are often the demographics that companies target with their products. As such, filling out the questionnaire will garner you more survey opportunities.

Initially, it takes a while before survey invitations start trickling in after signing-up. However, you can use that time to fill out some Profile surveys, which can be found in the “New Surveys” space located on the site’s main page.

Filling them out ensures you’ll be sent invites to discussions and surveys revolving around your interests only. Take note, however, that you won’t earn tokens by doing so.

 

Consumer Village – My Review

You are notified by email whenever a survey or discussion topic (known as “dialogue”) comes up. This email also carries information related to the topic on which the dialogue or survey is based, the compensation associated with it (number of tokens) and the period for which it’ll be open (it usually closes when a certain minimum number of people have joined-in and completed it).

Members are also informed of the different types of “token earning” activities (including the above dialogues and surveys) through a box titled “Token Earning Activities” on the right side of the homepage.

Also, you should try and take part in a dialogue or survey immediately unless you want to risk missing out once the quote is filled.

Members can also be part of surveys/dialogues through Consumer Villages’ mobile app (known as i°C), which is available for both Android and Apple devices. The app for your respective device can be downloaded from site’s homepage that also hosts a few instructions to get you started.

Using this app, full access to the panel is possible and same is the case with other communities of Gongos Research. The app is quite useful when you want to answer surveys on the go although responding to long questions (that is typical of dialogues) on mobile devices can be painful.

That’s why I prefer accessing their normal website from either my laptop or desktop, with access to a full-sized keyboard.

As for the kind of surveys you get, that is vastly dependent on the demographic you are part of. Most surveys I answered were related to tech products and groceries.

There will also be surveys from other communities within Consumer Village like Airwaves (focusing on mobile technology) or those from outside like Candy Dish (focusing on new candy arrivals and their purchases).

You should be on the lookout for these surveys from communities as they’ll get you a ticket to participate in even more such discussions, which ultimately helps you earn more tokens and rewards.

The frequency of surveys, however, is nothing much to talk about. In the last few months, I got only a few of them every month. However, the main moolah lies with dialogues and I usually receive more than a few discussions invites every week since I’m a member of 3 different communities.

With dialogues, you are mainly required to answer brief surveys or instant polls after which you need to respond to a number of discussion related questions. You are able to see the answers of other members as well and you can also respond to them if you like.

At times, the discussion’s moderators might step in and require you to expand on your answers. Needless to say, you must answer all questions put to you and that too in a reasonable amount of words to fully enjoy the incentive on offer.

Warning!

When you are filling out your profile survey, be sure to really read the questions and don’t just speed through the whole thing.

One time I noticed a trick answer option. The question was about different ways I use the Internet for. And then I had tick off stuff that I actually do online.

The options included normal stuff you’d do online like blogging, social networking etc, but there was also this one:

Eat a freshly backed banana nut bran muffin.

This is trickery on many different levels! So, pay attention when filling out your profile survey or any survey for that matter.

Compensation

The company compensates its members through tokens. These tokens can finally be exchanged for Amazon gift cards, just as it’s done on Valued Opinions. Money can also be earned by donating to charity (which is normally around 25-50 cents per incentive level).

For new members, 500 tokens amount to gift card worth $5. The incentive you earn is purely dependent on the level of your participation. This is illustrated best in the below table:

Fortunately, the tokens you earn never expire. Your incentives too are calculated at every month’s end and are processed by the 15th of the next following month.

You can check on your token balance by navigating to the right side of your homepage. Here you’ll find a box titled “My Progress Details”. Once you are able to claim an incentive, an email is sent with details on how to do so.

Earlier, the site simply used to email gift codes to be used on Amazon.com. Instead, they now send you an email that carries instructions on claiming that code via the homepage. All you need to do is click on your username displayed on the homepage and tick gift codes beneath the area titled “Incentives”.

The method of payment with focus groups is usually via personal checks. It has been a while since I was part of a focus group but I remember being sent a check worth $75 a couple of weeks later for the same.

 

Other Member’s Opinion

Just as I do with other paid survey site reviews, I looked around to get a feeling for what people think about this particular panel. As expected, there were conflicting first hand accounts and reviews about the site.

To give you a sense of what current and former members think about the site, without listing each and every review I read, here are few pointers:

Pros

• Accumulating enough points to get paid takes sometime but since the panel itself is quite good, I found that I qualified for nearly every survey that they sent me.
• Instant delivery through email of Amazon.com gift cards
• Gongos Research will (on behalf of CV) pay out of its own pocket 5% of the tokens earned for donation to different charities.
• Surveys are interesting, unique and very comfortable to complete.
• Support is good and you can get help when needed quite easily.

Cons

• Unlike many of its competitors, this site doesn’t send out too many survey invitations per week.
• It usually takes a fair amount of time before you can gather enough tokens/points for a payout.
• Cash payments don’t exist.

Is it Legit?

Consumer Village, or any of its sibling sites from the Gorgos Research stable, is a highly recommended survey panel from my side. There is no doubt this is a legit and trustworthy survey site.

Although the site doesn’t send out too many survey invitations per month, you do get to participate in community discussions, which is quite fun.

In the process, you also get an opportunity to learn about different products and services. And one of the most important things for me is that you are paid with Amazon gift cards once your participation increases!

So, while I do recommend joining Consumer Village, I wouldn’t spend too much time here since this review confirms that survey invites are as few and far between.