There are certain tasks that require a substantial amount of work performing dull activities. Researching price ranges for office supplies can be considered one of these cases for many people. Companies can use online websites like ShortTask.com to allow people with more free time to do these tasks for them. This allows the company to not have to hire new individuals, which is especially important in these dire economic times. Moreover, companies can offer higher cash incentives to get certain projects accomplished. Once the pay seems reasonable enough, then the work will be adequate. If the pay rate is too low, it appears as if the company does not care about the worker and the work will be poor. Hence, if one wants to get a certain amount of people to research price ranges for office supplies carefully, then the compensation must be fair for his/her time.

The research task of looking for office supplies could easily be undertaken by a solver. The task could include finding the cheapest supplier in the local area, finding a supplier that has fast delivery time for the best value or even the best price range within a given postcode vicinity. The task would include compiling an exhaustive list of all suppliers with values for all given variables starting with the best value. The task should also take into account quality and as such it may be required the solver recommends the best tradeoff between value for money and quality of the products. Finally the task could include researching what kind of bulk buy discounts can be accrued with each company as it is likely office supplies will be bought in bulk.