I'm looking for something to do, and my wife suggested my looking into this mystery shopping. But I noticed that most of the companies seem to be directed to females. Are there any male shoppers out there, and if so how is it working out for you ??

There are a fair number of guys who shop. I know of a few who are actually trying to do it full time as a steady income--though that is a real struggle. There are some male only shops, just as there are some for different age groups, and some that are female only, but most shops are for anyone.

Bestmark has a lot of shops that are Male only. They might be a good place to start signing up. I recall recently seeing other job postings that were male friendly. If I come across them again, I'll post the company. Good luck in your new endeavor.

I do a lot of hardware store and electronics shops that are definitely not gender specific. Actually, males in this business are probably less likely to be identified as a mystery shopper because store employees are more used trying to pick out females as the MSer.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2008 07:33PM by JoanG.

Thank you for your reply Flash and Joan. In regards to Bench Mark Co. didn't I read that one of lthe shoppers complaining about not getting paid due to some technicality, which she did'nt fell was quite right ??

I haven't as yet contacted any of the MS conpanies, I did find info. on the MS North America Assoc. which advised that we should not pay to receive their listings, whereas another person was advising which companies were the best to sign with, and of course there was a charge. How doyou feel about the fees. ?

Benchmark is a different company than Bestmark. I have had issues with Bestmark that their reimbursement for restaurant shops is not adequate to cover the price of the required purchases. But I have never not been paid what was agreed to.

Bestmark is likely to keep you pending for months until they have shops available in your area. You might luck out and they need you immediately, but don't get discouraged if they don't immediately take you on as a shopper.

And certainly look for other companies to work with. You don't need "Male only" shops. I recently did a fru-fru women's clothing store that carries itty bitty sizes that my skeleton wouldn't fit in if it was picked clean. For those of us whose sizes they didn't carry and for males, we were allowed to use a "buying a gift" scenario that would allow us to evaluate the sales skills of the associate.

And certainly the bank shops, fast food shops, grocery shops and much of the rest of mystery shopping does not require any particular gender, just a person with good observation skills.

Thank you Flash, how long have you been involved in this MS business ? And if you have any further help that you would care to share I would appreciate hearing it. What are the mistakes out there that I shyould be aware of. I was in business for many years prior to my retirement so I have a good knowledge of that side of a shopper.

As for fees to shop, it is nonsense if you have enough internet savvy to sign up with companies for yourself. There are lists of mystery shopping companies here, on MSFreedom.org and Volition.com--all of which are free forums you can sign up for. There is also Jobslinger.com which is free and will show you what companies currently have shops in your area so you know what companies to sign up with first. There are job boards on the free forums mentioned above, as well as on Jobslinger. And once you sign up with companies, you will want to go to their websites and see what is available on their own job boards.

This is not rocket science. It is a process of getting signed up as an independent contractors with a number of mystery shopping companies and looking for jobs with them. Many will send you emails when shops are available, but this is not a substitute for proactively looking at their job boards.

Many shoppers are happy enough to send their money to ShadowShopper because it will send them lists of available shops in their area. The shopper still needs to sign up with the mystery shopping company and there is no more guarantee that they will be eligible for or be awarded the shop than any shopper who went directly to the mystery shopping company's job board. I personally have never paid to shop and have never paid for certifications of any sort and have no particular difficulty in finding decent paying jobs each month to meet my financial goals for this endeavor.

I can't thank yoou enough for taking the mystery of what could be an interesting adventure for me at this time. Quite different from what I have been doing for many years I think its goping to be a fun thing. After I get going I will be back opn this sight to let you know how its going. Bye Flash.

Augie C
.

Probably the biggest mistake new shoppers make is not being organized before they start.

You need a separate email account for your shopping rather than using your existing personal account. My shopper email account gets possibly 50-60 emails a day during parts of the month. Most of it is junk for jobs I wouldn't take because the fees are too low, the areas to be shopped are too distant or unsafe or they just won't fit my schedule. I strongly recommend setting up a gmail account with a legitimate sounding name just for shopping. You can sign up for it at mail.google.com and it gives you a large enough space you can save all your job related emails for years while the emails you trash get cleared out in about a month.

You need a paypal account that uses the email address you have set up for shopping. Many companies pay by paypal and you would prefer be paid that way for a whole lot of reasons. There is no cost if you just sign up for an individual account and it is easy enough to transfer payments from paypal to your bank account.

You need some sort of logical file system for handling your shops, notes and such, both before you go out and do the shops and for retaining notes and such after you report the shops.

All the skills you need to be a good office employee you need to be a shopper: computer skills, reliability, punctuality, people skills, follow up, organization, and writing skills.

I was not implying that you should look for male only shops. But, as a newbie, the shop types that are stereotypically "male oriented" (ie. hardware/electronics/motorcycles) might be more in your comfort zone because of the life knowledge that you already have. Bank shops, as Flash stated, would be good also.


The other msp I was trying to think of is AboutFace.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2008 11:50PM by JoanG.