We live near a major city, in a suburb, so we should be near lots of shops. Most of what I see are restaurants with no fees or small fees, and other shops that pay $5 to $15. You might see a car shop for $20.

How do you make enough to do this full-time? I can't even see finding enough jobs to make $100/day, which would be 26k if you worked with only weekends off.

I shop full time. I work 7 days a week. I don't often have a day off unless it's a holiday. I enjoy what I do and it does not feel like work to me. I make my own schedule and I do what shops I want, when I want. I once heard that if you are going to have a job, make sure you enjoy what you do. I do!

Niner, first, how many MSCs are you signed up with? If less than 150, you need more.

Second how many of those have you done 10 or more shops, with high scores for? Key shop types would include: banks and other financial institutions, restaurants with MSCs that expect you to do a lot of those before they will let you do hotels, convenience stores, gas stations, apartments, new homes, senior care/assisted living, auto maintenance, parking facilities, grocery stores, high end retail.

With most MSCs, you will not see higher paying shops until you have "qualified" by doing more than a handful of their lower paid shops.

Third, are you video certified and own your own equipment to produce indusrty-standard video and audio?

Finally, are you prepared to learn how to put together a one day route of 10 shops? To graduate to doing overnight routes? (Be sure to get experience with hotel shops to lower the cost of such route.)

@Niner..in agreement about being signed up with a ton of mscs..and I agree also with find mscs that do bank shops.you need to be willing to drive too..just as an example .with just bank shops alone you could shop 5 shops and easily make over 100 dollars a day..

Niner--all great advice above. I am signed up with over 100 companies, even though I don't consistently do shops for all of them, and some have never had anything in my area. If I were you, I would go back through the list at the bottom of the page (official list of mystery shopping companies) and sign up with more MSCs. I live in a smaller-sized city (about 250k people) but not far from a large one (over 1 million) and I have plenty of work. But, not all of it is from mystery shopping. I also do merchandising and product demonstration work, which pays an hourly wage and does involve some standing and moving about (I look at merchandising as a paid workout though it's not as strenuous). If you sign up with more MS companies and after a few months are still not finding what you like, consider filling in the gaps with other types of work where you have a flexible schedule as well.

Additionally--define part time, LOL! Others who are saying they do this full-time might not mean 40 hours a week, as that term implies. I work about 20-35 hours a week, including reporting time. I cleared $3,000 last month, though that doesn't happen all of the time and that was a 35-hour week. I live in the Midwest and the cost of living isn't high here, so 3k is good money.

I also wanted to add that while I admire wales and others who travel, I don't travel often or at least very far. I got into the habit of staying close to home for shops when the kids were young and I wanted to be back home by the time they got off the bus (they are all adults now). The travel thing works really well for wales and others, and it's something I might consider in the future when my husband goes back out on the road for work next year (catastrophe insurance adjustor). I like to do mini routes of about 20 miles or so per day, and that's just my thing. My point is that it's not absolutely necessary to travel and there are so many different ways to make this type of work fit your needs, you just have to give it some time and figure it out, figure out what suits you best.

I've been shopping for about 17 years now, merchandising for 8 years, and doing product demos for 4 years.

@JASFLALMT..I think when some of us are saying be willing to travel..it applies to people who live in timbuktu and have a car but arent wiliing to drive more than 10 miles to do shops but then whine because they cant find shops...and midwest could apply to alot of states..for example I grew up in Kansas in a very small town..you had no choice but to drive 30 minutes for groceries etc..but you drive another 15 minutes you are in 2 huge cities that I imagine now has a ton of msc shops...and wow 3,000 in a month..thats amazing...thanks for posting that..definitely is nice to know that's possible..

That's true, but wales lives in a metro area (DC)...she is a traveling gal and makes a great living doing it! But some people have children or other reasons they don't want to go far from home. My point was that it's not always necessary to go far from home if you live in a a metro area or suburbs of a city.

I have done banks, gas stations, apartments, car dealers, high end retail, auto maintenance, restaurants, and gyms. The car shops paid at most $65. I had about ten for one brand at $40-50 each. My husband did one for $150. The apartment shop paid $45, and Ikea was bonused to $65 if I ever get paid for that. Over two months, I made about $2500, and that was driving a bit (80 miles out). Some cell phone shops went up to $75, but those were the exceptions. Next week, I'm goimg to a gym for $50 and a car dealer for $45. That's it for bonused shops/higher paying shops. I do get 10/10 on shops and am reliable.

All of this really gave me tons of respect for those of you who have figured it out full-time. Doing it full-time for two months was awesome and I wish I could do it as a job, but I can't and get by where we live. A very modest house is 3k/month with the mortgage and taxes.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/07/2018 12:31AM by Niner.

Video might be your answer, per walesmaven's advice.

@JASFLALMT wrote:

Video might be your answer, per walesmaven's advice.

That makes sense, but that is so beyond my comfort zone. There is a great shop that involves video. It pays something like $200 and you can spend $300 in fees. It's tied with an aquarium and another fun local place. The shop requires video though.

I was looking at the spy web sites. Are people actually using the baseball hats or sun glasses with the cameras? How are the video cameras not noticeable? I also can't imagine how you take hours of video and upload it somewhere. It appears that there aregood reasons those shops get higher fees.

I want to clarify that most of that was not mystery shopping. Some nutritional companies that I do demos for pay $25 per hour.

@dawnhu wrote:

and wow 3,000 in a month..thats amazing...thanks for posting that..definitely is nice to know that's possible..

And I wish to clarify that I do not shop full time. However, I have made it a point to learn from those who do so, and to help shoppers who wish to take the early steps to being successful at it. For this reason I often do workshops at IMSC conferences on similar subjects and know that several MSers that I have mentored are now very successful full time shoppers.

That said, I do actually do long routes from New England to the Carolinas. I just do them at a slower pace than would a dedicated full time shopper.

Well, I know that you cannot use the Talon App and do video shops. I have thrown three phones against a brick wall because they quit two or three minutes into the shop. I will have to spring for the standard setup a PV watsit.

That would be a PV-500. Be sure to check out the list of which MSCs accept which type of video that was posted here sometime around late May or early June by Joe Rossetti.

Talon rebuild failed about a year ago; no one is using it.

When I shopped full time, I stayed away from shops that required an outlay of cash. Also, I did higher paying shops (banks and apartments) as the focus for a week, and put in filler low paying shops (banks, cell phone) near by. Toward the end of the month, I reached my goal or bumped up my income by doing shops with heavy bonuses.