Hello,
My South Texas city has fewer than 10,000 people and is the largest city in the county. All the cities in three directions in easy driving distance are smaller. I am an hour from San Antonio. Years ago, I did regular part-time mystery shopping. I didn't have Internet. Over Christmas holidays, I registered with approximately 60 companies. So far, in April, I have shopped for 21 of them.
I work part-time at a college. My computer service has gone down twice. The first time was for a three-day weekend when the public library is closed and I sweated it out. I was doing a lot of Corporate Research shops that needed uploading. I haven't learned that yet and the machinery is on my husband's computer. We have one for mine, but we are so busy just trying to make ends meet. The second time the computer went down was seven days. We were so busy with life that we didn't have time to call about it right away. I learned that the college library is open until 10:00 so I was able to keep up with all my assignments.
During spring break, I did travel loops to several tiny rural towns. I thought I was being smart, but I've learned that lots of shoppers do that. I found myself in one convenience store for two different shops with different companies at the same time. One shop was for the gasoline provider and the other was for the convenience store franchiser. Doing this is hard because if there are questions, I can't do the shop over. I've had one local shop that I just did over because there were problems in uploading or receiving documents.
I am amazed that in the last four months, I have had several shops in my town. One was for the franchise of a company that used to be famous for its catalogs. I did three separate shops there for three reasons. One was an announced audit.
I try to limit myself to two towns in my county, occasional shops for three towns in two other counties, and San Antonio. I am limiting most of my shops to one area of that city because it is so large and, sometimes, a great deal of the time is trying to find the place. There was one in an area I knew but the store was between two interstates and a state highway, and only the locals knew how to get there. There was another one that was on a road detour. I was driving so, instead of looking up the phone number, I called the operator, who said the store didn't exist. I said, "I'm looking at it right now. I can't get across the detour." She referred me to another store. It's pretty bad for business when not only are you behind a detour but your number isn't even listed.
It's hard shopping cellular kiosks when there are more than one of the same name in the same shopping center. It's hard shopping very common stores when they seem to be five blocks from each other. I have to be very careful with addresses on some of the longer highways.
I enjoy mystery shopping very much. I want to do the better-paying shops. I am in transition in careers. Nothing I've tried pays well, so I have to do a little here and do a little there in different professions. If mystery shopping paid, I'd just stay with it.
By the way, why do we have to call ourselves mystery shoppers? I want to be able to explain it to friends without telling them everything. They're liable to see me in a store and ask questions out loud. I've tried business consulting, which is reasonable because everyone knows I have business experience. I've tried business auditing but they think that means a CPA. They'd believe that of me but it isn't the truth. When I do shops where I have to give personal information, I don't want to tell them my other job because they might discover that I don't really make enough money to be inquiring about their product/service.
Another thing I wonder about is how the way we dress makes us anonymous. I don't wear bluejeans and message T-shirts, and I get tired of slacks and tops. When I do upscale shops, I suppose I'll have to invest in a go-everywhere suit. How much do you suggest that I pay for a basic suit?
Sandra Sue