If you have just been focusing your mystery shopping efforts on urban and metro area assignments, you may be missing out on the opportunity to make even more money as a mystery shopper! While urban areas have many restaurants, retail stores, gas stations, and so forth that require the services of mystery shoppers, these areas also have a lot of mystery shoppers vying for those jobs. In rural areas, you will also find venues that need mystery shoppers, and in many cases you will find that these rural mystery shopping assignments have far less competition than urban assignments.
Expand Your Search. If you have your job search area saved to reflect jobs within a 5-10 mile radius of your home, you may be missing out on some great job opportunities. While nobody really wants to drive twenty or thirty miles out of town for a single $10 assignment, it may pay off big for you to pick up several assignments while you are out of town. Consider the small towns you will need to drive through or close to in order to reach the assignment in question, and try to find several assignments in these areas to complete while you are out and about.
You may even want to expand your search queries not just to twenty or thirty miles out, but possibly even to include mid-sized cities that are located nearby. If you can schedule a day trip picking up several mystery shopping assignments in one outing, your travel time and efforts will really pay off.
Different Types Of Rural Assignments. In rural areas, you may stumble across more unique types of mystery shopping assignments. You may find more gas station shops, car dealership assignments, and maybe even hair salons or various other types of jobs. Keep your mind open to the wide variety of possibilities available when you expand your job search to include mystery shopping jobs in rural areas.
Milk The Assignments. Rural assignments are often seen sitting on the job boards unrequested for many days, and the reason for this is often because people don’t want to drive that far. If you are thinking about requesting a rural assignment that has been sitting on the job boards for awhile, consider asking your schedule for additional compensation for travel expenses or a bonus to cover your extra time on the road. It’s not uncommon for a mystery shopper to double the overall compensation for a job simply by asking for more money. Consider how lucrative your day mystery shopping in a rural area can be when you pick up several assignments that each have travel or bonus pay attached to them!
Mystery shopping assignments are available in almost every corner of civilization, at points where services are provided and goods exchange hands. Avoid the inclination to work as a mystery shopper in one little corner of the world. You will find that you can make quite a bit of extra cash as a mystery shopper when you branch out and expand your horizons a bit!
Before I fly out to Arizona for a visit to my sister, I found and scheduled a dining depending the time I’m to arrive at the airport, then searched in the Arizona area for any dining or movie shops while visiting my sister. It is how I enjoy my vacation without paying for my entertainment. It paid to enjoy your vacation too.
What is considered the going rate for gas mileage nowadays? At what distance should I start asking for travel allowance? I travel approximately a 50 mile radius from my home and have not asked for travel allowance. When I did request it, I was not assigned the shop.
I’m a boonie shopper all the way around. I have fun figuring out how many shops I can do in a day by travelling 250 miles round trip. I’ve worked it out with some of my MSCs to report the next day instead of by midnight so I can come home and get some sleep first. I can tie together three new car shops that include mileage, 7-10 gas shops, a cell phone store, ff for breakfast and casual dining for lunch, a home improvement store (or two) and have a great drive in the country to boot. I report on what I have to and then go to bed and get up, finish reports and can be as much as $350 richer for my efforts. This of course coinsides with bonusses and the willingness of schedulers to pay mileage to get those boonie shops done. Schools out and today I’m sitting and planning a day trip on Friday with my grandkids to a pizza/game place about 50 miles away. I get an extra $15 in tokens that I wouldn’t get in town. Plus, I will do a couple of other shops in that same town and some gas shops to pay for the road trip. And the kids love their spy grandma and help me get names and descriptions. lol Greg, I don’t ask for mileage at 50 miles, but if I’m doing a route that takes me 150 or more round trip that I know the scheduler is hungry for, I sure will speak up! Be careful though, sometimes they won’t give the bonus and the mileage. I’ve gotten $.35 a mile. It adds up!
I’ve done over 200 miles in a day, and gotten a few hundred dollars for that day’s work as well. It is most definitely worth it. Also considering the tax deductions for the mileage, if I do it right, my taxes owed for that day will be in the negative. Mystery shopping is a game that you either play well, or think it is not worth your time.
I like to mystery shop because it is flexible, fun, and I get to take my family with me sometimes. I would prefer some audit and Mechandise shops, so that I can make more. I had one bad apple so far, i did a mystery shop and did not get paid but 4.00 for it when I did two of them. i need something more than 4.00 which is not enough for me.
I have always made “route” shops. Sometimes it does pay off big time others not so big but the time off after the shops are done and the relaxing country drive is worth it. Schedulers are usually willing to compensate for time/mileage. If I am driving more than 25miles round trip I start requesting bonus pay. Some jobs get rejected but for the most part they work with you. I have yet to become a member of that $200and up club but now that I know others have done it…it’s worth a try!
I put together runs all the time. I just wish there was a central place to search for jobs from ALL the mystery shopping companies. I have a couple favorite companies I know I can get work regularly; but to add the extra stops along the way can take hours of searching the individual job sites. I am signed up with close to 200 companies, and sometimes you just got to be lucky to get them first. Got one run for me and my wife we made over $900 one weekend.
This is good advice, but I fail to see the link to $350 !! Many of these practices are already in use, however I have been shy about requesting more dollars. One thing for sure, the competition in urban areas is fierce!! Thank you for another informative article.
I have done the same things. I won a stay at a hotel a couple hours from my house. I of course still had to pay for the gas. So I found a couple apartment and grocery shops in the area. By the time I left there, I had enough expense deductions to make that money tax free. I was going any way so why not.
The only that I want is to work in mystery shopper but that the companies paid me.
I have done several shops that have required lots of driving. The first thing I did is I tell the schedulers that I am willing to drive farther than most other shoppers, now they are coming to me and asking me if I can help them out with some shops in the middle of nowhere. I have even had one company pay me over $1200 for some shops that took me to another state. Once I have a premium shop scheduled, I will then look for other shops that are on the way or not far off the way and schedule those as well. It makes the trip take longer, but I may even get lucky and have 2 or 3 companies pay me a premium to make the same trip. When I ask for distance pay, I ask for 50 cents per mile round trip. I get this only about 25% of the time, and another 50% of the time the scheduler will negotiate with me and I will still get the mileage pay by getting other companies shops on the same trip. When I go shopping for the day, it is never for less than $100 plus reimbursements and is usually over $150 without premium pay.
I must agree with most of you that have commented i looked at my Payapal account for last year’s tally and made an almost unbelievable total of 2200.00 for my efforts and i don’t shop every day, What with the bonuses that you must ask for because most schedulers don’t let on that there is one but remember without you it won’t get done so relax a bit if your on good terms with the schedulers than it won’t take away from the relationship by asking for more money they have an account for which the money will be disbursed for the trips we aren’t supposed to know this but some do. Anyway I have a regular job at present but still do mystery shopping on my off days because i too am a grandmother and my grandkids have gotten a few items from my numerous forays into shopping assignments
Not sure how to get started. Do I need to go to a training first. I was a Sales Rep for an oil company and dropped in on stations out of my area to evaluate the appearance, the personnel and the handing of customers. Is this the basics for Mystery Shoppers?
i want to be a mystery shopper that eats food and plays video games so please contach me as soon as possible because in really interested on working as a mystery shopper
Colleen, just read more on this board and on Volition.com as to how to get started. The best training is to just go out there and do some shops, fast food is a good way to start. You already have the right mindset!
please just tell me how i can become a mystery shopper and NOT have to pay a fee, registration or otherwise.
I really need a job, and I just want to know what will this cost me. I am unemployed and have no upfront money. How can I get into this business with no cost.
I have taken assignments in rural areas, but I have a problem with getting them all on the same day. If I am driving through three counties or so, the drive-time eats up the shopping time. Then I have to consider when the stores close in various areas. I have also had assignments go bad, even through no fault of my own, and then I’m asked to go back. Right now, I am cutting back some because I want my car to last. As the schedulers realize I do a good job, I get better bonuses.
I’m pretty new but the trips and being willing to go long distances really appeal to me, even to a different state. If I could shop a hotel, a dining room and a breakfast place and lunch….I’d have time to go the museums, sit by a lake, read, and all the things being at home has me too busy to too. Thank for the long mileage request over 50 miles. That sounds like a winner, especially to someplace 100-150 miles away, as that is a hefty tax benefit for this next years tax return. Cheers!
I can work in rural areas in st. george, washington,hurricane,santa clara, etc