While finishing up my spreadsheet for taxes, I realized that I'm somewhere in my 10th year of mystery shopping. A few observations on the past decade...
What I wish I'd know in my first few months:
* It's ok to take shops that don't pay that well to get your foot in the door with a new company, but choose carefully (a 54 mile round trip for a $7.50 shop was not the smartest decision)
* Treat this as a business. Keep records from day 1. Makes taxes much easier.
And in the first two years...
* If you accept the shop, do the shop.
* 10 ft pole shops are 10 ft pole shops for a reason.
* Get an EIN. My SSN is probably on more than 100 MSC systems than it should be. Caveat: Make sure an EIN does not trigger the need for a city business licence
* Check out every company here before you accept your first shop.
Schedulers
* When you find a good one, become their "dandruff shampoo" (if someone flakes, you are their first call to fix it
* Build a relationship with a few key schedulers.
* It's ok to do them a favor, but they should grant you favors in return. (a $1 bonus is not a favor)
Most interesting battle stories:
* My wife was along on a teller shop (allowed by guidelines). As I am conducting the transaction, she saw the bank manager is holding a sign in her office window that read "SHOPPER" and frantically trying to get the attention of a teller (or get a reaction from me or another customer). Neither of us saw the sign.
* Doing a highly bonused "dandruff shop" (replacing a flaked shopper), I ran into the flaker taking the exact same photos I was taking. He explained that he had shopped the wrong location, and the scheduler told him that if he got the reshop done before the replacement, he would get paid. Needless to say, he raced through the shop and when I left, was uploading photos in the parking lot.
* Receiving a voicemail at work from the local police department after a financial shop when the required question raised suspicions of the employees (and they gave my license number to law enforcement)
What I'll never do again:
* Accept a shop fee by phone without checking the job board to see what it's listed for (today, for example, a scheduler on the phone was offering $8 less than what it was listed for on their job board).
* Take photos ONLY in the MSC's app. I always take extras on my phone, in case there is an issue
Things I'll continue do in the future
* Calculate expenses (mileage) per shop. Makes it obvious that adding a second or third shop on the same trip increases profitability (or adding another shop is just not worth it)
* Set a monthly and yearly "profit goal" (and do a better job of tracking it than just at tax time)
Final observation: I've probably done >2,500 shops in 10+ years. There is ONE company that comes to mind that has increased fees on a shop (without adding significantly to the shop requirements): Service with Style. Everyone else I work with has kept base fees close to where they were or they have reduced how much we can earn. That's the nature of business: Both the MSCs and shoppers have the same goal of maximizing profit. Being selective (and negotiating fees when possible) is the key to success in this business.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2020 01:06PM by KevinE.