@morocco77 wrote:
Hello. This is my second post here and i am wondering if it is possible to make side money doing this. I live in a large city and there seem to be very few shops available. I did one recently and it was accepted, Things went well. But it's hard to find any other shops. I am on the verge of giving up or maybe just doing this once every few months for this one particular shop.
I thought this might be more lucrative, say an extra $100 to $150 a month. I guess not.
Have you tried Trend Source, OP? They are known for their grocery store shops and pay every two weeks. I consider these bread-and-butter mystery shops and they form the core of my "strategy."
I feel like I'll be repeating myself (as I've said the same thing over and over again innumerable times), but since there are always new people to this forum, maybe it won't go to waste.
I am willing to do grocery shops, despite the unpleasant nature of many of them for me, because they involve an activity I would be doing anyways. Each person needs food and essentials (that can be bought at a grocery store) to survive. I DON'T NEED a $25 meal. I'd love one, but it's not a necessity. I don't do reimbursement only meal shops (except for Texas Roadhouse - my family's fave). Grocery shops offer me a need AND no significant loss of driving time and mileage costs. I'd have to shop for groceries anyways. Again, I don't have to eat out at a nice restaurant (with crazy long narrative reports, reimbursement-only/no fee, and payment 60 days later). If I do a restaurant shop for a fee (e.g., Five Guys) that's not on an already planned route, that costs me extra time/mileage. It's .50 cents/mile for an average car per IRS calculations - that includes the cost of your car, insurance, maintenance, and depreciation. There is almost no quickie food shop or generic cell phone shop where I can leave my house and drive to the shop location and have it be decently profitable. A 10 mile one-way drive = 20 miles round-trip. That's $10 for mileage that I'm out. That's not even including the driving time. Often that's the fee itself! That'd leave me with no profit!
With grocery shops, I feel I'd HAVE to drive out anyways to buy groceries. And the time spent shopping is time I'd have to be in those types of stores anyways. That they pay me a small fee and reimbursement for groceries is okay by me. I get necessities and don't feel I've lost too much on time and mileage. I route them (either a cluster of grocery stores and/or with other shops - say, Five Guys or Sonic, etc.).
I might not make big bucks, but I feel I get essentials met this way oftentimes. $15 of groceries might give me several days worth of food vs. a $15 drive-thru one-time Burger King shop. Once I am done with that Whopper meal, that's it. I can buy lots of cereal, fruit, or what have you with cash instead.
I try to do grocery shops earlier in the month. They are rarely bonused in my area (or, maybe, just for me). Other shops that get bonused later in the month are often the non-grocery ones. There is no advantage for me to wait later in the month for grocery shops, whereas there can be for other shops to get a bonus. I also do lots of phone shops earlier in the month. They are never bonused as far as I know. There is no advantage for me to wait later.
This was my bread-n-butter strategy in the past. I dunno if it still works as well - I don't shop as much and have other income. It might also depend on location. My area has lots of grocery stores and Sonics by them. We have like 50+ grocery stores and Sonics combined within a 12 mile radius.
Some of the better paying phone shops I did were for:
Baird Group
Verify Healthcare
Confero
Lots of MSCs have phone shops, but they are often low-paying, unfortunately.
Shopper's View has easy low-paying ones. I found they were worthwhile for volume's sake. They only involved a few questions and you could knock out a good bunch in an hour.
Have you tried Uber Eats by chance? They pretty much accept anyone (if you're a breathing human being and have a car newer than 1999). If you need routing, you can combine Uber Eats deliveries with mystery shopping.
Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 06/26/2019 11:29PM by shoptastic.