I've been a shopper for 11 years. In the past 3 days I've attempted to do two shops that have me reconsidering mystery shopping:

1. White Castle - used to be pretty easy and straightforward. I did one on Sunday (drive-thru) that had me taking photos of the menuboard, food wrapped, food unwrapped. Then I had 4 different timings, had to comment on greeting, suggestive selling, type of menuboard/speaker, # of vehicles, food temp/quality, cashier, cleanliness, # of customers inside (even though this was a drive-thru assignment), # and type of dedicated parking spots, etc. All this for $8 plus reimbursement of some greasy cheeseburgers and fries.

2. NJoy (vaping stuff) - receive Fed-Ex package with display kit. Arrive at gas station, go behind counter, take numerous photos, update the display, count the number of each product (approx 10 different products). Then you get the cashier to use their handheld device to determine if their inventory matches your count. Finally, you have to enter each price into the annoying app. The pay? $20. Unfortunately, when I arrived (you have to go during their busiest hours), there was only one cashier and a line of customers. She didn't know what handheld scanning device I was talking about. She tried to scan one of the items and nothing happened, it was not the correct scanner. Then she told me that she thinks they don't have a scanner for smoking items. I wasted 40 minutes and could not complete the assignment.

There's a new Starbucks opening in my town. Maybe I'll get a job there and give up mystery shopping. Some days it's just not worth the aggravation.

After four yrs. and eight months of attempting to be successful as a full timer, I accepted my failure. Beginning 01/08, I became what I refer to as a situational shopper and am pleased with the results. The following are the only three circumstances I will accept shops:

1-The fee must be sufficient to entice me to work.
2-Lifestyle assignments, which generally would be dining.
3-Jobs I encounter on non-shopping travels, that permit me to defray expenses.

I am aware there are shoppers who must accept lower fees and do not criticize such actions..

Many shops are NOT worth it to me. I am like Shopperbob in that I do things that I might already be doing. Dining is one of them. Not really interested in pretending to be interested in retail assignments that serve no value. When I was considering a big screen, i did the best buy shop to get TV info. But I am not willing to do this on a regular basis since I already purchased a big screen tv and could really care less what they are saying at this point. Now fi they paid $40 for the shop, then maybe I could pretend. But I'm not going to do any fragrance shops, displays, pricing audits, gas stations, etc. I used to do gas stations for the customer first program, but haven't done that since 2018 and no real need to get back into it.

Document delivery:

Print x number of pages (not reimbursed)
Find nice envelope

Schedule drop off?
Drive to location (20-30 minutes)
Drive back ($6/gal. Gas)

$13
Payment

Lolololol

having a job and only doing MSing on the side was the way to go for me. interestingly, being more nitpicky with what i pick up, ive come out close to even with fees bc i only take them with bonuses.

I made the most that I could make for the first three months of this year without going over my SS penalty payout. Then I got sick and spent a month in the hospital and I'm still trying to recover from it. Now it is in the triple digits and since there is no AC in the car I do not worry about it right now.

@2stepps wrote:

I made the most that I could make for the first three months of this year without going over my SS penalty payout. Then I got sick and spent a month in the hospital and I'm still trying to recover from it. Now it is in the triple digits and since there is no AC in the car I do not worry about it right now.

There’s some pretty good phone shops out there right now. Web inquiry shops, too. Maybe consider those?

On this forum, we have a unique situation of members who shop F/T (some earning $75-100,000 annually) and those who dip a toe occasionally, doing what they like. The second group makes maybe $10-20,000 a year.

There’s a lot of conflict between the two groups; I’ve been guilty of frustration with what I term “hobby shoppers.”

I can’t think of many other industries like this. Imagine a plumbing, painting, electrical workers’ 1099 contractors forum where maybe 1/4 of them work 10-12 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. And a second group of 1099 contractors who fix plumbing or electrical outlets as a hobby, picking up odd jobs on travels or doing “interesting things.”

Of COURSE there’s going to be battles between the two groups.

I don’t know what the solution is, except maybe start another forum for full-timers, since they have a completely different view of shop fees, large national projects and routes.

I understand what you're saying completely. It's not so much that I have any angst towards hobby shoppers in general, I just don't understand why people work for less than minimum wage. In some ways, though, I am thankful for the hobby shoppers. Or for the shoppers that will do some jobs for low pay, within reason. It keeps more money in the budget for me later! I wouldn't want somebody to come in and wipe out all of my normal routes, but doing a lot of the locations in larger cities for peanuts helps keep money in the pool that I can receive later.

@ColoKate63 wrote:

On this forum, we have a unique situation of members who shop F/T (some earning $75-100,000 annually) and those who dip a toe occasionally, doing what they like. The second group makes maybe $10-20,000 a year.

There’s a lot of conflict between the two groups; I’ve been guilty of frustration with what I term “hobby shoppers.”

I can’t think of many other industries like this. Imagine a plumbing, painting, electrical workers’ 1099 contractors forum where maybe 1/4 of them work 10-12 hours a day, 5-6 days a week. And a second group of 1099 contractors who fix plumbing or electrical outlets as a hobby, picking up odd jobs on travels or doing “interesting things.”

Of COURSE there’s going to be battles between the two groups.

I don’t know what the solution is, except maybe start another forum for full-timers, since they have a completely different view of shop fees, large national projects and routes.

@ColoKate63 wrote:

On this forum, we have a unique situation of members who shop F/T (some earning $75-100,000 annually) and those who dip a toe occasionally, doing what they like. The second group makes maybe $10-20,000 a year.

I'm what would be considered a hobby shopper. I earn even less than what you figured, making between $3000-$5000/year. However, I *DO* have my own budget for what I will accept--AFTER expenses. My BARE MINIMUM for AFTER expenses has to come out at $12/hr. Most times, I average $15/hr, and that is after gas/expenses. So I'm satisfied with that. Other PT/hobby shoppers have their own budgets and reasons for what they will take.

Each group (FT vs PT) has to learn to accept folks in the other group as they are. We are our own workers, and all of us, FT vs PT, are unique and valuable. We each see things from varied perspectives, which other folks may not grasp or understand. We each perform valuable services, for whatever pay rates we may deem suitable to each of us. ALL of us, both FT and PT have our own reasons for taking the fees we take, and it shouldn't even be an issue for anyone else. No one else walks in our shoes alone but us, as unique individuals.

What might be interesting, @Colo, would be to start a separate thread to discuss issues relating to FT shoppers. It could conceivably become quite long, like some of the other threads that are up to over 100+ pages long! It's just an idea, though.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2022 08:49PM by guysmom.

I can’t imagine working for less than $35/hour. I declare my income, pay all my taxes and hold business insurance and business coverage on my vehicles.

Minimum wage is $12.50/hour in my state, and entry level fast food pays $18-20 hourly.

Shoppers who are willing to work for chicken feed drive down prevailing wages. If you are OK with $12/hour, you are part of the problem.

@ColoKate63 wrote:

I don’t know what the solution is, except maybe start another forum for full-timers, since they have a completely different view of shop fees, large national projects and routes.

Please don't! I'm new and still a hobby shopper because I have a full time job and haven't built a reputation with the MSCs yet to get anything other than base pay and I learn so much from you full-timers! I read these forums everyday to see what else I can learn.

I agree with the overall sentiment. I don't think FT vs PT exactly covers it. Many PT here are highly selective and only bite at large bonuses, while many FT fill up with base pay shops in exchange for a predictable schedule.

And, really, in the end, those jobs we started doing to make $35/hour or whatever were previously done by someone else who was probably making more, and now complains about how we drove down the fees.

I understand it is the prerogative of each to decide their respective threshold. It could be need or, in my case, situational. As an example, on Tues. 07/26, I must depart one shop by 18:00 and can not enter a second job until 19:00; they are approx. 1 1/2 miles apart. Between the locations sits a Kroger's, for which the pay is unacceptable to me. Do I twiddle my thumbs for an hour or work for sub-standard pay? I checked, but the date was not available, so I will twiddle. It was neither a need for money nor do I consider myself a hobby shopper; it was strictly a situation.

who is making $100k from mystery shopping full time?

@colokate63....are you waiting for someone else to start the FT thread? Why not do it yourself since it was your idea? Or you could even host your own forum just for FT shoppers and weed out those non-FT shoppers you don't want to be part of your discussion.

After 20 years of shopping (hobby), I have come to realize, no matter how much I wish/want/hope/etc, people will do what they want for the $ they want. Just be happy with the shops you are willing td do for the $ you are willing to do them. Everyone (FT and PT) would love higher pay. But unless something drastic happens, that's not going to change.

@ColoKate63 wrote:

I can’t imagine working for less than $35/hour. I declare my income, pay all my taxes and hold business insurance and business coverage on my vehicles.

Minimum wage is $12.50/hour in my state, and entry level fast food pays $18-20 hourly.

Shoppers who are willing to work for chicken feed drive down prevailing wages. If you are OK with $12/hour, you are part of the problem.

Here in SC, minimum wage is $7.25, can you believe that??? Entry level fast food wages here is between $12-$15. Gas prices here are hovering on average for regular at around $3.65-$3.89/gal. So I'm sure the cost of living here is less than where you live, which I guess is Colorado??? ("Colo"Kate). You have more expenses to cover than I do. I don't have business insurance or coverage on my vehicles, so that's more you have to account for. So perhaps overall living here is less than there, and henceforth, I can be "OK" with lower fees. It's not easy living anywhere, but maybe it's harder where you are. Now, I will say that in the last 2 months, I've made a LOT of money doing the candy gummies recall for RQA......as in, literally $60+/hr, because they were so easy! So I'm grateful when those sorts of jobs are around, believe me!! Again, we ALL have our reasons for accepting the jobs and fees that we do. I think it's AWESOME that you make as much as you do, I really do! And I'm just as satisfied with the jobs I accept, and I'm glad to be able to refuse those jobs that don't meet the fees that I find acceptable.

$35 an hour sounds like a lot… until you realize that I’m paying 15.3% self-employment Social Security and Medicaid, Federal Taxes, State Taxes, register a LLC, a business license, post office box, cover my overhead (gas, hotels, meals) on the road. I do have deductions, but I write the checks quarterly and they aren’t small.

Companies like IPSOS don’t adjust for cost of living, so when shoppers in poor states accept $8 for a job, their algorithms set the fees lower and lower on big national accounts like gas stations. What you are doing in Alabama and South Carolina affects shoppers in California and New York.

The way that I make money in this line of work is that I learned how to do video work and then got my own clients. I do a lot of covert video work on disability fraud cases for a law firm. My mileage and route deductions from mystery shopping help to offset the profits from the disability fraud work.

I had one from Marketforce for an audit of a cell phone shop. Made the call for a day earlier than I originally scheduled. Went to reschedule and only had dates ahead of time. Emailed Helpdesk. Reply said I had to go 5 days out from shop accept date. Nothing in the CI or guidelines stated this. Have to call shop tomorrow to reschedule for next week.

$12 an hour after expenses and $35 an hour before expenses might not be that far apart, depending on how you do your math. One thing I've learned on this forum is to never take anyone's claim of an hourly rate at face value. Not that there's any dishonesty involved, it's just that everyone has their own method at coming up with the number. I usually figure the hours on the road and reporting time, and subtract travel expenses, and tend to ignore overhead and job search time. Not that it matters what I do, just saying I could do it a number of different ways and come up with wildy different numbers. As long as at the end of the month I made enough to cover my living expenses, and at the end of the year showed a decent profit even after taking all allowable expenses, I figure my method works for me.

@mystery2me wrote:

$12 an hour after expenses and $35 an hour before expenses might not be that far apart, depending on how you do your math. One thing I've learned on this forum is to never take anyone's claim of an hourly rate at face value. Not that there's any dishonesty involved, it's just that everyone has their own method at coming up with the number. I usually figure the hours on the road and reporting time, and subtract travel expenses, and tend to ignore overhead and job search time. Not that it matters what I do, just saying I could do it a number of different ways and come up with wildy different numbers. As long as at the end of the month I made enough to cover my living expenses, and at the end of the year showed a decent profit even after taking all allowable expenses, I figure my method works for me.

I count driving time, on-site time, and reporting time.

I don’t count the time I spend on emails or bookkeeping (I probably should.)

Mystery shopping and routes gives me the deductions that I need to keep my taxable income tolerable… my rate for the disability fraud video is higher than $35/hour.

I've also found over the years that many of the FT shoppers that were probably making 6 figures are no longer around. There was a thread during the pandemic about a few of them. I still find it hard to believe that even with video, relying only on the MSC's available that one can make 6 figures year after year. At some point it runs out.

Of course I'd like to get more pay. Who wouldn't. That being said....I did a checking account opening shop for one MSC and WOW...the form must have been written by the IRS or something. Holy bleep. The pay was three figures....so it's an outsized example. If you give me the choice between doing four shops at $15 with a normal amount of questions or this job I did at $60.... I'll take the 4@15 every time.

@Phoebe70 wrote:

2. NJoy (vaping stuff) - receive Fed-Ex package with display kit. Arrive at gas station, go behind counter, take numerous photos, update the display, count the number of each product (approx 10 different products). Then you get the cashier to use their handheld device to determine if their inventory matches your count. Finally, you have to enter each price into the annoying app. The pay? $20. Unfortunately, when I arrived (you have to go during their busiest hours), there was only one cashier and a line of customers. She didn't know what handheld scanning device I was talking about. She tried to scan one of the items and nothing happened, it was not the correct scanner. Then she told me that she thinks they don't have a scanner for smoking items. I wasted 40 minutes and could not complete the assignment.

This is actually merchandising, not a mystery shop per se. $20 is actually pretty good pay compared to my merchandising "day job" unless the job is far from home and/or runs over an hour (rare on the NJOY assignments, when I did them a while back).

@condorchristi wrote:

Of course I'd like to get more pay. Who wouldn't. That being said....I did a checking account opening shop for one MSC and WOW...the form must have been written by the IRS or something. Holy bleep. The pay was three figures....so it's an outsized example. If you give me the choice between doing four shops at $15 with a normal amount of questions or this job I did at $60.... I'll take the 4@15 every time.

If the form doesn't keep getting kicked back to me asking for more details (like it did when I did mystery church guest assignments), I wouldn't mind taking the checking account shop at $60 over four shops at $15, as the latter requires more driving and remembering/noting more dtails between all four shops.

As long as people accept the lengthy requirements and low fees, the MSCs have no reason increase the payments.

When the shops get messed up or cancelled, or forgotten about by the new or unprofessional shoppers, they will be posted with hefty bonuses.

@DrSquash wrote:

@condorchristi wrote:

Of course I'd like to get more pay. Who wouldn't. That being said....I did a checking account opening shop for one MSC and WOW...the form must have been written by the IRS or something. Holy bleep. The pay was three figures....so it's an outsized example. If you give me the choice between doing four shops at $15 with a normal amount of questions or this job I did at $60.... I'll take the 4@15 every time.

If the form doesn't keep getting kicked back to me asking for more details (like it did when I did mystery church guest assignments), I wouldn't mind taking the checking account shop at $60 over four shops at $15, as the latter requires more driving and remembering/noting more dtails between all four shops.

Omg, that church guest shop was endlessssss!

I agree with this strongly. My average rate, including travel time, is $40/hour.

While many may believe that the MSC sets the rate per shop, I believe that we set the rate. I know that some people have their own reasons for picking up low paying jobs. The reason MSCs get away with paying low rates for shops is because people continue to pick up these low pay jobs. We are allowing ourselves to be exploited.

If the work is too much for the pay then don't take the shop. Or ask for more money. I'm really curious how many actually negotiate pay here.

This isn't meant to be offensive to anyone. I just think a lot of you could be making more money without working harder.

I hear Starbucks is a good place to work. I wish you well.

I like the flexibility of taking the jobs I want and giving myself multiple "days off" a month.

But you're right...the compensation is hilarious some times.

I was sent an e-mail today advertising a phone shop. The pay? $3.00. I have some thoughts:

If the pay is $3.00, that (hopefully) means that the task is super easy. If it is that easy...why doesn't the MSC just have the boss's secretary do it and not put it out to the shopper community? I don't know the bylaws of the industry but it hardly sounds like it's worth outsourcing to shoppers.

So maybe the shop is complex? I don't know. A $3.00 reimbursement is rather hilarious though. But for some reason..the same MSC does a phone shop every month that pays $5. I usually take it. So I guess the jokes on me.

@Phoebe70 wrote:

I've been a shopper for 11 years. In the past 3 days I've attempted to do two shops that have me reconsidering mystery shopping:

1. White Castle - used to be pretty easy and straightforward. I did one on Sunday (drive-thru) that had me taking photos of the menuboard, food wrapped, food unwrapped. Then I had 4 different timings, had to comment on greeting, suggestive selling, type of menuboard/speaker, # of vehicles, food temp/quality, cashier, cleanliness, # of customers inside (even though this was a drive-thru assignment), # and type of dedicated parking spots, etc. All this for $8 plus reimbursement of some greasy cheeseburgers and fries.

2. NJoy (vaping stuff) - receive Fed-Ex package with display kit. Arrive at gas station, go behind counter, take numerous photos, update the display, count the number of each product (approx 10 different products). Then you get the cashier to use their handheld device to determine if their inventory matches your count. Finally, you have to enter each price into the annoying app. The pay? $20. Unfortunately, when I arrived (you have to go during their busiest hours), there was only one cashier and a line of customers. She didn't know what handheld scanning device I was talking about. She tried to scan one of the items and nothing happened, it was not the correct scanner. Then she told me that she thinks they don't have a scanner for smoking items. I wasted 40 minutes and could not complete the assignment.

There's a new Starbucks opening in my town. Maybe I'll get a job there and give up mystery shopping. Some days it's just not worth the aggravation.

Or maybe a dedicated forum page for full-time shoppers?

@guysmom wrote:

What might be interesting, @Colo, would be to start a separate thread to discuss issues relating to FT shoppers. It could conceivably become quite long, like some of the other threads that are up to over 100+ pages long! It's just an idea, though.