You’ve seen the ads touting how you can make a part time or even
a full time income doing “mystery or secret shopping.” Some say
you can make between $10 – $60 an hour or more. That is
technically true. But it’s stretching the truth a bit. There’s
another side of the story that most people neglect to mention. I
believe everyone should know this side as well.
According to Mystery Shopping Providers Association website:
Mystery Shopping is the practice of using trained shoppers to
anonymously evaluate customer service, operations, employee
integrity, merchandising, and product quality. You can mystery
shop for practically any service or product you can think of.
First and foremost, there is NO need to pay for mystery shopping
information. Mystery shopping information is available for FREE
online. You just have to know where to find it.
Mystery shopping on any sort of regular basis is really for stay
at home Moms, people who have plenty of spare time or someone
with an extremely flexible schedule. Lots of notifications are
for “emergency” or “urgent” shops which may need you to do it
the very next day.
You MUST have internet access. You also must be intelligent. You
will need to write out your reports and you have to be able to
articulate your observations well.
The hardest part about getting an assignment is to get that
FIRST one. The trick to getting selected is to SELL YOURSELF in
your reply.
With many shops you must pay out of your own pocket first then
wait to be reimbursed. That’s not always the case, but it’s
quite common. Many companies pay you the following month and it
can take up to 45 days. So if you need the money you’re spending
to do a mystery shop to pay the bills, DON’T do it.
The most time you will spend associated with a mystery shop is
in filling out the report/survey afterwards. It will take you
over an hour to complete the survey if you are just starting
out. Anyone who tells you otherwise is not being truthful.
Something very important that gets conveniently left out is if
you don’t fill out the survey ‘correctly,’ your report may be
rejected and you will NOT get paid.
Those stories about people making over $7,000 in a month doing
mystery shops are anecdotes. They are few and far between. The
truth is that you will earn far less. It is true that you can
make $10 – $60 an hour doing mystery shopping. But…you may not
get more than one job a week or a month for that matter. The
reality is that you might make between $50 – $100 a month when
you first start out. If you stick with it, you can make several
hundred dollars a month or more by doing multiple shops. To make
any decent money, you’ll need to do multiple shops in a day. And
the longer you stay with it, the more money you’ll be able to
make.
You’ve heard all the hype, now you have the other side of the
story. You now know what to expect going in. And you won’t have
to learn through the school of hard knocks like so many others
have.