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Having your own Mystery Shopping Company question.

November 10, 2011 04:16PM
Now that I have been a Mystery Shopper for over one year now, I really like the work, however I am now wondering if I should take it to another level, to make more money in the future. As I think of retirement a few years from now, this seems like a business that I would love & enjoy to make some extra income in my golden years :-)

Now with that being said, I was just curious to know, do you have or do you know of anyone that has their own mystery shopping company? If so, I would be curios to know that if you deem the business successful, how many hours of work per week do you put into it, and about how much money do you “net” annually?

Mainly I am seeking information from people that actually have a business like this (either yourself or someone you know). I see that there are books on mystery shopping that have a chapter sometimes covering starting your own mystery shopping business, yet I would like to hear from people in this form that are actually successfully running a business like this themself.

If you have your own mystery shopping company and or if you know of someone who does, could you answer my two previous questions?

Thank you in advance :-)

Wilson
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November 10, 2011 04:43PM
Being uninvolved in the owning of an MS business as most of us are, I suggest you writing to an MSC owner directly. I'm sure you are registered and work for a few. Seems like picking their brain would get you more concise answers.

Live consciously....
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November 10, 2011 05:48PM
While some MSC owners might be willing to share, I suspect more of them would not appreciate the competition. If you read your ICA agreements, most of them have a non-compete clause that you cannot have or be employed by another MSC and work with them. If I recall correctly, most of those have a 2 year window for the non-compete after your termination with them.

That being said, I know of several folks who have opened their own MSCs and neither one of them is still actively operating. One just did not have the salesmanship to make themselves an indispensible item for their clients and the other was only getting small businesses in their local area and they were their own shopper. Shopper rotations are valuable so that you are treated as close to a first time customer as possible every time you visit. If you are your only shopper you either won't visit very often or won't be given first time customer treatment.
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November 10, 2011 06:23PM
I don't think you are going to get anyone to give you information on the amount of money "netted" annually, at least not in a public forum.

I have worked in this business a long time. I started as a telephone interviewer when I was a 16 years old. I have managed marketing research programs from both client side and from the vendor side. Currently, I have a fairly high level position in a marketing research company. We do almost all types of research (focus groups, in-depth interviews, telephone surveys, intercept surveys, online and web surveys) and the one thing we do NOT do is mystery shopping. If we have a client that wants to do mystery shopping - I refer them out to MSCs that I know and trust. The reason we do not do mystery shopping is there is very little to any margin in it we have found.

I know several people who own mystery shopping companies. The majority of them are trying to branch out into vertical spaces or expanding their breadth of services into other forms of marketing research or possibly training. Why? Because that is the only way to grow and make more profit.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/10/2011 06:24PM by MickeyB.
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November 11, 2011 07:03PM
Everyone, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all of the great & detailed feedback and suggestions. I appreciate it very much.

I am not too keen on going to an established MSC directly, since as most basically have pointed out, they would not be forthcoming with such proprietary information like that. Yet since I know that this forum has many members, I figured that I would try my luck here, just to see if I could find out anything, with any of the members that have done a MS business on a small scale.

Thanks once again, Everyone! Have a GREAT weekend:-)

Wilson
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