How much do you make per month mystery shopping?

I was wrapping up college and working at a burger joint as an assistant manager... the pay was roughly $300 a week. I made more mystery shopping than that for several months in the summer, but it was kind of an outlier situation for me. I typically make $300-$1200 in a month these days. I was only making $50-$150 and some reimbursements but I've upped my game. And I'm with about 40 companies. I regularly ship for 3, pick up a few here and there for 3 more, and just scour the rest for those occasional big bonus shops

My new 9-5 is killing my shopping time though haha.

MegglesKat

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@JASFLALMT, Thank you!!

NP. My day sucked so bad I am glad I helped someone out lol.

@mlzg wrote:

@backtowork wrote:

Funny thing is, now I have all those salespeople from dealerships continuing to email me saying how they see they need be more aggressive and give me the best deals, etc. to win over my business. I guess when I really do need to buy a new car, I will send out some internet inquiries to dealerships and ignore them for a month. Playing hard to get seems to be working, only I don't need a new car now! ha!

I'm such a homebody, unless there's food involved. Those phone shops are my favorite.

I used a burner app for these calls and I give an e-mail I don't check... When I get too many calls, I burn the number and get another one...

I love phone calls... I admit I take the low paying phone shops too... I work them into my normal work day... I make several hundred dollars a month doing almost all phone/internet shops for several companies. I love the auto calls more than the banking ones...

@JASFLALMT I'm sorry your day sucked, I hope things get better!

@mlzg wrote:

Thank you all for your responses!

I have only signed up with and shopped with BestMark so far. I looked into a few others, but they required SS# during sign up.

I would *love* to do a grocery MS. Grocery stores are my favorite kind of store

Get an EIN. MS companies also accept EIN.

Free, easy, on-line, at IRS.gov

Best of luck.

(IMHO, giving the SS# on a secure connection is no problem. But I am an idiot where tech is concerned, and I could be wrong. So get an EIN!) *Then you use the EIN on your Schedule C for self-employed.

"Unless I'm watching Bones and eating at the same time, very little grosses me out"

@MA Smith: try watching Hannibal and eating at the same time. Anyone who can do that is incapable of being grossed out! ;-)

I have been mystery shopping since February and am signed up with about twelve companies. In September, I earned about $260 in reimbursement. Like Casper 7776, all of this goes towards paying extra beyond the minimum payments for student loans. In September, I had my car and my husband's car washed three times, had two dinners and three lunches. For a couple of stores, I needed to make small purchases which were reimbursed so I ended up with a few small items I can use for gifts. Also, I forgot to mention, that I completed three grocery shops which didn't have a shop fee but reimbursed about ten dollars for groceries and each time I stuck close to that amount.

I have three part time jobs, two of which have flexible hours and require me to drive to towns within a 30 mile radius. I try to sign up for shops that are close to where I am going to be working.

I haven't learned how to negotiate yet and have only received two or three phone calls from schedulers so I find most of my shops on the company's websites.

I hope this helps.

@backtowork wrote:

I'm a homebody too! I recently started as an amazon customer service associate (working from home), but I'm not really liking it. I also started merchandising in the last month and a half. I really like the merchandising, and it doesn't bother me to have to leave the house to go and do it. I actually find it fun! But there's not as much work as I thought there would be. I put my name into a few more places, but haven't really had the response back from them that I had hoped for.

I'm kinda scared to get into mystery shopping. Most of what I read on here sounds like there is a whole lot involved with it. Sounds like something I'd have to ease into. The phone shops seem like they would be a good way to get my feet wet with it. If I did 3 of those an hour, it's more than I'm making merchandising and more than amazon as well.

You definitely don't need to be scared. I got a little confused my first time doing phone and internet inquiries and mixed two shops up. I had to re-do one, but it was ok because it was just before the time frame ended and I hadn't submitted anything yet. For me, doing only 1 phone or internet inquiry shop per day helps me not get confused.

From my limited and personal experience, I think that to be good at mystery shopping you need the following skills:
1) Ability to follow directions closely & be prepared
2) Decent writing skills
3) Ability to go with the flow and remain in character

Give it a try! :-)

Thank you for the vote of confidence! I just signed up with Bestmark and they approved my application, so here goes!

@Jtack, I'm going to check into that burner app you mentioned, thanks.

You are all so helpful, thank you everyone!

I bring in about $400 a month + $100 of reimbursement that is of value to me. From what I see, bonuses are rare and small in my area. The few times I've asked for one the scheduler has turned me down and easily found someone else for the job.

@ceasesmith wrote:

Get an EIN. MS companies also accept EIN.

Free, easy, on-line, at IRS.gov

Best of luck.

(IMHO, giving the SS# on a secure connection is no problem. But I am an idiot where tech is concerned, and I could be wrong. So get an EIN!) *Then you use the EIN on your Schedule C for self-employed.

Thank you for the advice! :-)

@N-TownShopper wrote:

"Unless I'm watching Bones and eating at the same time, very little grosses me out"

@MA Smith: try watching Hannibal and eating at the same time. Anyone who can do that is incapable of being grossed out! ;-)

I will admit, that's is one show and movie I can't get done. It's not the gross. It's the scary scenes. The only movie I ever got through with was the Exorcist. I knew it was only split pea soup.

Live your life in such a way that when your feet hit the floor in the morning; the devil shudders...And yells OH #%*+! SHE'S AWAKE!

@MA Smith Yea, luckily the special effects weren't all that believable back when The Exorcist was made!
I like the Hannibal films well enough, but the show had me hooked. I did find it more gruesome than scary however. Maybe once you know what happens from seeing the movies, the scare factor is gone?

Hey backtowork, if you don't mind my asking, what is it like working for amazon, I know you mentioned you don't like it very much and wondered why? I shop there a lot, so I am curious what the work is like. I agree with the advice many have offered. to give mystery shopping a try. You may be surprised how much you can make and there are a lot of companies and myriad shops to pick from. For me mystery shopping is hard work, as I am working on paying off student loans too, which feels endless at times. If you are hoping to make decent money you have to hustle, but I believe you may like it more than you imagine and no doubt you can do it! If you don't want to talk about your work with amazon, its cool, but if you do I'd like to hear more about it, if you don't mind sharing and thank you.

@HTTR, here is a link to a whole thread about the amazon job:
[www.mysteryshopforum.com]

It didn't work out for me. Too bad. It just moved too fast for me. I couldn't retain all the info that was given. The first part of my training was about 50 hours all in. Then I was supposed to take so many live calls before moving on to the second part. Well I flaked on the calls, and that was it for me.

I guess it depends on your personality. I'm highly anxious about everything and so I was constantly stressed. Maybe it would have been different if I could have gone to a call center for onsite training. I felt as though I was on my own too much through the training process. Ah well. I think it could be a great job if you can get through the training part. I still love amazon, and I will continue to shop as I always have.

I'm warming up to the idea of mystery shopping. It would be a great addition to add into my existing merchandising jobs. I have a fixed merchandising job that is on a Monday and Friday at the same store. It only takes me about 20 minutes and the hours are flexible, so I'm always looking to add onto that job. I've seen a couple of car shops in that same area..it's just a matter of working up the nerve to do it, hahaha.

I 'make' a few bucks here and there; enough to purchase coffee and a sandwich maybe 3 days a month. 99% of my jobs are for reimbursement only. Works for me and my hot husband dates, LOL. ;-)

I have a full time job and only shop for fun. I make $700-$1200 per month in reimbursements.

Short? LOL!

@backtowork wrote:

I've never heard of phone shops. I'm going to look into this now. Thanks for the tip. Just a quick search showed a company that pays $5 for a 5-10 minute call and a short 1 page survey to fill out. That doesn't sound like a bad deal to me!

Some members of this forum were grossed out by funeral shops. These shops came in handy when I was sick and couldn't go out of the house. I earned over $2,500 doing these gross shops, and I was sorry to see them go. Also, I like doing phone shops due to the limited amount of mystery shops in my geographical area.

Hello G
If you plan out properly area wise and job wise, you can easily make about $3000// per month!!

I have tried mystery shopping and Merchandising both. I prefer merchandising for just the reason you said, mystery shopping is lots of details that you have to remember. There are many merchandising companies out there and especially at this time of year they are usually overflowing with work. Go to the retail recruiter and post your resume and you will probably get some of them contacting you.

I won't reveal the average that I make each month, but I would like to share some information in hopes it will be helpful to someone. First, I only do shops that are interesting to me. I don't like a certain large Bedding and Bath supply store, so I don't sign up for that one. I DO like to do a gas station on shop days so that I can have my fuel covered. Since reimbursements for purchased like food and gas are not taxable income, they have a much higher value for those lucky enough to have big income tax bills. I frequently buy discounted gift cards on Raise and eBay/Amazon to get further increase the value of each shop. Lastly, I'd like to suggest that when you do a shop where there are not many items you'd like, think ahead of birthday's coming up, or sell the item on eBay or Amazon.

I'm signed up with less than 50 MSCs and I'd bet 80% of my work is with 4 of them. I vary the number of shops I do each month based on my available time and my attitude! Fourth quarter is when I do the most and I use that money to pay my holiday expenses.

I just started a couple of months ago and have been making close to $500/month, but I feel like it's a lot of work. I work another job full-time so try to do 1-2 each day M-F and 2-3 each day on the weekends.

And I do $2 Mobees, $4 Field Agents, and other low paying jobs all the time. I figure $4 pays for my gas for the day, or lunch, and every little bit helps. I'd like to get into merchandising, but don't know how to do that.

It depends- one month when I was off for the summer I made $500 plus my reimbursements but generally it's around $200-$300 with reimbursements.

I'm a teacher and I have another part time job st a college but that job is going away after December so I may start doing more shops.

I do as well as I want. I get a little grouchy if I don't make over 500 a month. So its all up to the individual. You can work your butt some what hard to make some good money. It's a bit hard to start when you have to wait so long to get paid but once you start rolling and work for as many companies as possible. Pick a few you like and see where it goes. I don't work every day because I am retired and don't want to. I've been doing some casino shops and three a month bring in the 500, so I don't have to do anything else if I don't want to. The problem is I can't sit still some days.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2016 03:11AM by Kate20105.

I have been shopping for about 16 months. I make between $500-$800 per month and I work pretty darn hard at it. I enjoy most of the shops and have become a much more savvy consumer. I have spent more "all-nighter" than I care to admit to getting reports in. Sometimes things pile up for reasons beyond your control, especially if you do targeted apartment shops. I am very grateful for the income as I had some unexpected nasty surprises and had to have extra money coming in. Shopping would be a lot more fun if I were free to pick and choose. I try to earn $30 a day but don't always make it.

At first it was a great way to make a small amount of income when my stepkids were young ($400 per month). As they got older, I was able to take on more and more. I too do merchandising and it is great to go have a "free" (work for it) lunch while doing store resets, or stop to get groceries for a shop on my way home. When my husband goes out of town, I do a lot of fast food or dine alone shops. When he is in town, we do restaurant and hotel shops. I do love the flexibility of it. There are times I make a lot of money and others when I do not. I have been working a lot lately so I am looking forward to being an unscheduled bum for the next two weeks and cleaning my house.

The key is if you can hold out until the bonuses hit

Sometimes waiting for bonuses mean going empty handed when those shops get grabbed up by someone less greedy than I am. If I need to eat on my merchandising lunch break and there is a shop nearby at base pay, I will take it so I don't have to spend money out of pocket on my lunch. Gotta do whatever works for your situation.

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