I have been mystery shopping, auditing and merchandising since September 2006.
So far I have done approximately 200 plus assignments
I have applied to many companies, probably 50 to 75 or more.
I would really like to know what companies to apply to that could use a shopper in the Northeast Alabama area.
The positive experiences are doing a shop then revealing to the manager that they scored high enough for a certificate. (Of course this is a part of the assignment.) It makes them very happy and proud. Sometimes I am sure it brightens their day. I enjoy meeting the employees when I have a merchandising assignment. One manager has a 4 year old little boy who has a brain tumor and I got to meet him one day. So when I cheer up her day, I'm glad.
I live in a rural area so sometimes it is hard to find a shop that pays enough to make any profit. I love scheduling my own hours and being picky about who I shop for. I started out taking a lot of fast food assignments, but after I started gaining weight, I stayed away from those kind of assignments!! I really like the variety that is available, however sometimes I have to wait a while in between shops because there is limited availability in this area. I try to stack my jobs so there is more than one assignment in one area, but it's still hard to make a profit. I'm not in it for wealth or riches. I get to enjoy my family, grandkids, and church so it's worth it!

I have been a shopper since the end of November. I have completed approximately 15 shops. I haven't had any major issues. The only time I had any trouble was when one employee at a Dunkin Donuts refused to give me a receipt. I have shopped for about five different companies.

My experiences all around so far have been very positive, other than the shops in small area's are too few.

I have done 6 mysteryshopper/gapbuster assignments and have gotten paid for them. I enjoy them but I actually get paid more from my regular job. They are great when I can go on trips and get paid for the assignments and get a meal as well. However, I am a vegetarian so McDonalds doesn't have as much a selection as I'd like, but my husband enjoys them. Thanks and I think it's working. Maureen Smith

I have been doing some mystery shopping for the last 3 years now. I have gotten my MSPA silver Certification, and am working to get my Gold certification. I have signed up with probably 60 mystery companies and have been getting probably 15 to 20 shops a month. I have done, gas station, convience store, fastfood, casual dining, dept stores, grocery stores, pet stores, office supply, hardware.
Some of the companies are slow to pay. so those I dont work for then real often. have had a couple companies say that lost my paperwork I faxed them. so I make sure I have at least 2 copies of every job I do.

I have been doing mystery shops for approx. 2 1/2 years. I work for 7-9 companies. I love shopping. I find doing financial shops the best. They pay very well, also the shops for oil changes. I come out with a free oil change everytime I need one. It is nice to go out for a meal and get paid for it. I have met some very nice people and I am not getting rich with this experience, but it puts a dollar or so in my pocket when I need it. Looking forward to working with your company. Patricia Allen

I too have never had to pay a company to get information to do mystery shops.
I am a single mother looking to make extra money to support my children.
I understand where a business like this is coming from, but I dont have a penny to spare therefore, I am unable to give any feedback for you. I apologise & wish you the best. I have done some shops by contacting other companies or the stores directly. Good luck!
Melanie Vannozzi

I began my shopping career Jan of 06. It was slow getting started, I paid for my first list of companies. Didn’t know about Volition or you. I made another mistake by not taking my silver certification class before I registered with a lot of companies. It took more time to go back and update my information. By the way I have registered with over 200 companies. Mozilla is my browser and it’s great it works like Robo Form. This made filling out the forms easier, and it remembers my Ids and passwords. Once I updated my info and posted the silver certification I began to receive more shopping post. I had to start with a lot of small jobs that didn't pay very much $5.00 for a service station audit $10.00 for new accounts bank shop. I did each and every shop to the very best of my ability and used this experience when I applied for other shops.
Shadow Shopper really helped my shopping career, I paid for my membership with a round of bank shops that I did and made an extra $800 all from one company.
I now have more offers than I have time. I already have 45 shops for February. I like the flexibility that my shopping career allows me.
I now perform high-end investment shops for $30 to $50 dollars, great up-scale restaurant shops as well as casual dining. I've even done a few hotel shops, hated the reports on those so I would only do another one if it were a 5 star hotel.
I live in a great area for shopping so my mystery career is a lucrative endeavor. I read some of the post from other shoppers and they sounded so disheartened.
I would love to meet other shoppers in the Tampa area. I will be attending the gold certification class in April. I hope there are a lot of locals there so I can meet other shoppers.
I think your great. You offer shoppers encouragement and make getting statrted easy. I sent you info to my daughter-in-law and her path has been much easier than mine. Thanks for the help. Claudia in Tampa

I havent really went on any yet it seems like a lot of work for $7.00

I have been mystery shopping for only two and a half months, and altho I seem to get a lot of fast foods, there are a lot of companies to apply to.. Shadow Shopper wants you to pay..They tease you with good paying jobs, but unless you pay them, they won't give you the info.. With all the other companies out there, you don't need to pay..I have taken several "tests" for different companies..If it's asking to much for you to read the material and take a quick quiz, then you probably are not the shopper they are looking for. The only problem I seem to have is getting a lot of e-mails, and applying for shops, and not getting them. However, it does show them you are intrested. I apply for every day they have available..Chances are, you'll get one sooner or later..gloria

I am still signing up with companies,I think I have signed up with about 80 companies so far.If it was not for your list of companies I never would have known where to start,so I would like to thank you very much for your help.So far I have only done two assignments.One was for a pizza place,and one for a fast food restaurant.I was very nervous about the fast food restaurant,I thought everybody working there would know I was a mystery shopper the way I had to keep checking my watch to get the right times.Any suggestions on how I can be a little more discreet when trying to get the times would be greately appreciated.I am having fun and have gotten quite a few e-mails from different companies about available assignments.I think I'm going to take some of the lesser paying assignments to start off with to get some experience,more confidence, and get a good reputation with the companies I am shopping for.

I tried it out of curiousity and for fun! But then I found out that it also exciting and instrucstive - besides those "little refunds and fees" you get in return. I have learned a lot of things we take for granted as a shopper, but wished they were "that way" now!

I have been a mystery shopper for about 2 months and thwe only negative thing is at the end when they are asking you to buy somthing and your not supposed to buy anything then they take and make you an offer that is really hard to pass up but you have to because the person who has hired you has told you not to buy anything or to join any clubs. That is hard to keep saying no when you want to say yes.

I have been doing MS for about nine months now. I started out the first 3 or 4 months very slow but it just keeps growing. I do have to travel a lot because we live in a rural area and there is not always something close. I usually do about 300 to 400 shops a month. This month I did 181 shops for one company. My husband is retired and we line up a bunch of shops and take off for a couple days. In the last week and a half I drove over 2000 miles. I basically set up a perimeter of about 150 mile radius and try to stay within that. I can do anywhere from 15 to 25 shops in one day. It has really been fun. Darlene

I had signed up with several shopper sites but heard nothing for months. Then I recieved an email requesting me to sign up with another National Shopping Service - they had recieved my location details from ShadowShopper and were looking for shoppers in my area. I have done 3 shops with them so far and another 2 lined up for this weekend. They usually just re-imburse you for what you've bought so not much extra but I am getting the experience. They called me to do another shop towards the end of the month - pizza delivery - vut as it wasn't my area, I was able to get it changed to carry-out and a $10 bonus.

Last week I recieved another email from a different Shopping Compnay again requesting shoppers in my area. But at the moment my schedule hasn't allowed me to sign up for any shops.

How can someone do 15-25 shops in one day? I once did a phone shop which took 5 minutes and the report another 5. I could do 15-25 of them in one day. My record is 12 in one day. I spent almost 6 hours on the road doing the shops and over 3 hours doing reports. It was exhausting and almost took the fun right out of it. I learned 3-5 is plenty for me.

Making the world a better place to shop, one assignment at a time.

cant get informaton on where I can go to the local jobs. All I get is a job number, expiration date, what town it is in. I gave up on trying to get one of thoses jobs

Thank you
Cara

I have not done any shops, due to the fact that there has not been any within two hours of my residence. Therefore, I no longer want to be a part of mystery shopping, and would like my refund. You can send my refund to: 1 Hunters tr. Greenville, SC. 29615. Thanks, Kimberly Lynch

I live in LoS Angeles and started mystery shopping last Nov 2006, with the intent on making this my main source of income. I registered with 73 companies so far and have done 242 assignments. I took almost every job offered and it takes some cash to start this, you may be getting stuff for free but its not free until you get reimbursed after 30 days. I made $405 the first month, then my second month jumped up to $1245, but then the third month brought me back down, but still encouraging at $925. This was not achieved by the "doing it when I had spare time" method. This was living and breathing mystery shopping, splitting up your grocery list so that you can make 12 grocery store purchases at a minimum of $8 (3 items) each in one day, at 4 different grocery stores, going there 3 times in one day, 6 hours apart. I also did an unbelievable amount of bank shops, so many that I can tell you where there is a Bank of America in every town within a 30 mile radius of my home.

The only question I have is that I'd like to know if this business is busier only during certain times of the year?

The positive: I get to go places that I would never have gone to and its fun to pretend. One of the most amusing things that happens now is when I go to any store with my daughters and for example we get to the register, they memorize the cashiers name and tell me when we get in the car. That happens even when I'm not mystery shopping.

The negative: Submitting the reports!! In my opinion this is the most time consuming part of mystery shopping, unfortunately its the most important part of mystery shopping. I mean you could go out to 12 assignments in one day but you still have to submit the 12 reports online. I never incorporated that time when I first started, until I noticed that I was going to bed at 2am and then getting penalized by some companies for not submitting the report by 10pm that evening.

I'm registered with so many companies but I only have one company that I get work from regularly and get a paycheck directly deposited into my checking account twice a month.

I honestly believe that you can make a living at this business, not get rich and most certainly not make $7000.00 in one month. Does anyone else think that was a load of crap? (I'm referring to that mystery shopping news article on the woman that made this amount of money mystery shopping) Ok how much money did she put out? Because I worked my ass off to make $1200 and I think the only reason why I didn't make more was because there wasn't any time left in the day to do so.

I think it all has to do with the way you come across to people, i have notice some people on this forum wants the jobs to come to them or they are not going to do one for 8.00. if that eight dollars is close to my home, I am going to shop it. That is how I started out and now the some scheduler are calling me for 25, 50 and even 100 jobs because when they needed a ruse done I was there to do it for them. As for Shadow Shopper, i paid 39.90 for 3 months and I made it back double in my first week. I have a fulltime job so I dont have the time to look for the jobs. But it is your choose if you want to pay or not

I've been shopping for 3 years now, and love it!! I am diabled from an accident and it helps me with what small amount my monthly disability pays. I was in the restaurant industry for 25 years and love people, so this is a wonderful way to keep social while doing a service for different companies.
I think it important to let new shoppers know, they should be persistant if they really wish to be considered a professional shopper. It takes time to biuld a relationship with the companies you sign up with. Also prepare to wait 6 weeks for the checks to really start rolling in. Most companies take 4 weeks to pay, some less, but most more. The investment of time is what you make it. There are great companies out there to work with, but it takes determination on the shoppers part to make it worth their while. I work for more than 20 different companies. In my case it's perfect. The companies I work with know my up time is limited due to the disability, and they work with me. I have found that most companies will work with shoppers if they communicate with the scheduler in a timely fashion. I've had high paying assignments and one's I do just for the dinner out, or cocktails with friends type thing. It has been profitable and fun.

I have been mystery shopping for 3 years now. I am an MSPA Gold Certified Mystery Shopper. I have done casual fining, fast food, fine dining, local attractions and concerts, storage , apartments, research, exit interviews and back of restaurant audits.

I like to do the mystery shopping, when it comes to sending in the reports it is another story.I one company I worked with(for a short time),this one guy running the one account, the computer never would accept certin works or subject matters and the guy would not ask why is was happen,just that I was being studip in making the same mistakes all the time.Since he would not listen to reason,I filed a complain against him.The people above him never really move on what I was talking about and I left. It seems the people running these accounts or mystery shopping companies never seem to listen to what we have to say about how some of this reports on working on line.I am looking for a good company to work for and will listen to what is going on with our equipment and things.

I agree the online reporting is not the fun part of this job. Every company has a different system. Some companies want you to use the employee name others want you to never mention the name. Some companies want as much detail as possible and give you endless space to do so other companies want as much detail as possible in 300 characters or less. I used to do a lot of work for this one company. Their jobs were easy and they paid very quick. The problem was their online reporting. I hated it. Another company asks you a question which you answer and then a drop down box appears and you have to highlight the answer you just gave. It took me quite a few shops to get the hang of that one. If I don't like the reporting system of a company, it will do me no good to complain. The beauty of being an independent contractor is I can refuse work from those companies and move on to the next. Good Luck!

Hi Bonnie,

Good advice I find that the word processor is great for the editing of reports, makes it easy to fit things when a limited space is provided. It also is easier to write the narative that requires more detail at the end of most reports.

Mike

I have been shopping for 2 months. In the beginning I signed up for every company that shadow shoppers sent information on. I have already done 18 shops varying from banks,restaurants, retail, nursing home phone calls, blockbuster video, Sears, Walmart, Family dollar, and on and on. The checks are coming in now. In the beginning I took any job regardless of the money to learn the business and have them learn about me. I am not going to get rich but I like the self scheduling part. I'm getting to know people and the jobs for me. I'll continue until things go bad but it doesn't look like soon.

I started registering with companies a few months ago. I've been out of town some,so have been slow getting goind. I am now beginning to get offers, that I would love to complete. I'm finding so many are a distance to drive.

The pay for these shops would cover my travel, but little over it since gas is expensive. Therefore, I'm waiting for shops that are closer to me that I can complete that fit into my schedule. I have many years experience in managing, supervising, training customer service, and sales. My time and expertise is much more valuable than $5 - $10.00 including travel expenses.

I have been mystery shopping for Shop'n Chek for 10 years, they use to make my job assigment my mail and then I had a certain day and time to do my assigment then I would fill the paper work out.Then I have a certain time and date to call it in by telephone. Then Shop'nChek would send me a check for the c ompleted assigment. Now the only way I can work for Shop'n Chek is on te web.I can't log into their website to get the assigment(s). Shop'nChek is the only mystery shop company I have work for. For some reasons cost me to work for the other mystery company they want a up front fee to join their company. or they want you to do the assigment long way from your home. And Shop'n Chek and the other mystery shop companies pays a small wages for the work you do for them, it got so it was not worth my time and car gas to work for them. That is my mystery shopping experience I could make a destion wage working as a mystery shopper.




Cordially

James Armstrong
jgreatjames58@yahoo.com

Mystery shopping is not going as I would like or as I thought it would. I have done two shops total. The first one I applied to and got the job. Was very excited and I scored a 9 and good comments! I was satisfied with that one. After that all I was getting offers for were very cheap ones that would pay like 5 or 10 dollars for a whole bunch of work like taking pictures, documenting a ton of stuff, and much more. I really feel for all that time to prep and do the job, plus to fill out the paperwork throughtly afterwards is alot of work for only a few bucks and I don't know how they can get away with that. That is very unreasonable to me. The second one I just completed and that one they called me and asked me to do the shop. I told them no because I have been very sick and don't want to commit to something that I can't do a good job at. The lady begged me to do the job and since I have learned to do it to help them out and then they are more likely to give you jobs in the future. I finally decided to say yes. She told me it was very simple and said this is all you have to do. I committed to it and it ended up being much more than a few simple things that the lady told me it would be. That really upset me. The computer wanted me to take a test before it would let me go in and do the report. Plus lots of other hoops I had to jump through. I really thought it was rude to have me jump through hoops when they begged me to do this and I was doing it as a favor. I don't know if I will be doing much more mystery shopping. There doesn't seem to be any good paying ones out there and not ones I was looking for like retail or restraunts.

I've been Mystery Shopping since January 20. 2007. I signed up to Shadow Shoppers for the price of $29.00. It was well worth the price, That is where I met all my contacts. I'm constantly signing up for new companies, but I work on a regular basis for 8. I've shopped banks, motocyle dealerships, grocery stores, several kinds of retail stores I've also shopped cellular phones and internet services in department stores. The most fun was the motorcyle shop where I had to make believe I was going to buy a motocycle. Also I sarted doing demos and special events. Next week I've 5 demos which will pay me $250, and you can't often make that with just Mystery Shopping in a week. I also just have to drive to and fron the place and that saves on gas. I love my job and it's a whole new world. I never want to stop.
In the first place I love to shop so what can be better suited for me. Mystery Shopping goes hand and hand with me

Carol Kelly