Every mystery shopper who first starts out in the job initially has their own unique goals that they want to meet with this job. For some people, they simply want to earn some extra spending cash on the side, and this includes everyone from retirees to college students to stay at home parents, too. Other people, however, have big dreams of turning this fun and exciting job into a full-time gig. Some people do indeed make an easy transition into mystery shopping, and they may soon be working a full-time schedule and earning full-time dollars in a matter of weeks. Others, however, really do struggle to get their new job off the ground and can’t see how to turn it into more than a part-time opportunity. If you are ready to turn your mystery shopping gig into a professional, full-time job, here are some tips to follow:
Defining Full-Time. For most people, working a full-time job often means that they not only work most of the day for 4, 5, or even 6 days a week, but also that they earn a paycheck that they can live on, too. As you may very well know from your experience mystery shopping so far, this is not a job that you will get rich off of, but if you fill your schedule, you can make a decent living. Consider that the typical assignment may pay you between $10-$20 per hour of your time. Of course, how efficient you are and how much assignments pay your neck of the woods may cause this to vary a little for you. However, you can do the math and determine how much you can realistically earn if you work a 40 hour work week. You will want to make sure that this full-time pay is enough for you to live on, or you should be prepared to work more than 40 hours per week.
Filling Your Schedule. Now one key aspect of working as a full-time mystery shopper is being able to fill your work schedule accordingly. If you are having trouble locating enough assignments to fill your days, you should consider signing on to work with a few more providers. You don’t want to sign up to work with so many providers that you don’t have time to view all of their job boards regularly, as this can actually hurt you in the long run. However, finding the right mix of providers who offer decent pay and are great to work with, and who also offer plenty of work in your area, can help you to fill your schedule and stay busy with full-time work.
Improve Your Efficiency. On the other hand, if you are working plenty of hours and just aren’t earning enough money, you may need to take steps to improve your efficiency. You will want to make every effort to get in and out of your site locations quickly. If you find that you are actually doing some shopping of your own at your site visits, this will eat away at your time and prevent you from picking up other paying gigs. You should also try to cut down on travel time as much as possible. Attempt to book all of your assignments for the day (or at least for the morning hours or afternoon hours) in one section of town. If that is not possible, then consider trying to book all of your assignments in a straight or roundabout path so that you don’t have to waste time backtracking across town throughout the day.
Following these tips can help you to first determine if full-time mystery shopping is right for you, and they can also help to make the transition into being a full-time mystery shopper, too!
Love doing it! Thank u
I enjoy Mystery Shopping and make some pretty good money at it. I don’t know what the average shopper makes, but I think I’m above average. There are long days and nights to shopping. Even though the pay per shop seems reasonable in most cases, don’t forget the reports. After 11 shops yesterday which took 9 hours with travelling time. The reports added another 41/2 hours to the day. I sometimes won’t take a shop because of the time consuming report. Not worth it sometimes. That’s my two cents worth.
Thanks for all of your comments & suggestions!
Thanks so much for all the information I am so glad I found this company. Before I was working with Shadow Shopper Plus and I had to pay 29.99 every month. I liked the company but couldn’t afford it.
To me, the biggest problem is that for every hour spent mystery shopping, you have another two to three hours of looking for jobs, sending out applications, reading emails, scheduling, driving to the jobs (which invariably are too far apart, no matter how hard you try), and then filling out forms which may take an hour to complete in themselves. As a result the so called $20 an hour job ends up being more like a $5 an hour job minus the cost of gas.
Because of this I tend to only take jobs which I think would be fun (like amusement parks), provide a service I needed to be done (carpet cleaning or oil change), or which are very close by, so as to minimize travel time. Other than that, I don´t worry about them. Basically, I need a real job. I haven´t been able to support myself this way. Your comments?
The shopping part is fun and easy. It’s the reports that take up so much time. Some of them are so redundant. I don’t see how anyone can support themselves by only doing mystery shopping because of the extra time it takes to do the reports. And while I’m complaining – sometimes the guidelines for low-paying jobs are just ridiculous. They expect you to do so much and only pay you $8.00
I found out that some of the internet jobs didn’t pay much, but I didn’t have to burn gas and it was done out of the convenient of my home. So you really have to way Pros and Cons. Some of the three dollar jobs with easy reports I found to be less time consuming and profitable if I could pick up a few. Overall I agree variety is key so you don’t get stuck in a rut and being smart about assignments you choose more money isn’t always the deciding factor for me.
I would like to see a chapter leittd JOB DESCRIPTION, or maybe BUSINESS DESCRIPTION (because most mystery shoppers do it as a business and not by being someone else’s employee), to explain all the basic requirements that a newcomer should be fully aware of before he enters the arena of mystery shopping. He needs to be aware of what computer skills, negotiating and other people skills, recordkeeping skills, dealings with tax authorities, etc. are all required in this kind of work. Probably he must have his own computer, printer, etc. at home, too; would that be correct? I think he may also need ability to deal with a wide variety of companies, some of whom deal very fairly with mystery shoppers while others pay a low amount or pay late or are slow about giving assignments, etc. Newcomers like myself may be very unaware that such things can happen in the world of mystery shopping, but at the same time I also believe there is plenty of opportunity for those who know how to navigate it. Kevin Brennan