Mystery Shopping

A check for 1 week of work from February

 

Mystery shopping. A lot of you have emailed me and asked me about this recently. I thought I did a post on this but I guess I didn’t because I can’t find it anywhere. I usually make around $150 to $200 a month from mystery shopping (find my latest mystery shopping extra money update here).

I use mainly Bestmark for my secret shops. I’m not sure what else are good and reputable sites. What sites do you have luck with? Do you use Bestmark?

Last month I didn’t make too much because not a lot of “good” shops were offered in my area. Lately, I’ve been a little more picky with the shops that I sign up for also.

What I consider a worthwhile shop for ME:

1. Either an online shop or phone call shop
2. If I have to drive, it’s close to somewhere I’ll be
3. Something I’ll use. I love doing Estee Lauder shops because I always love free makeup.
4. Restaurant shops, because I have to eat of course.

 

Of course, what’s worthwhile to you and me might be different. When I first signed up for mystery shopping (sometime last summer I think), I literally signed up for everything. I made decent money, but it literally wore me out. The amount of surveys that you have to do is so repetitive that it makes you want to throw your computer at the wall.

Sometimes surveys take just a minute, but sometimes they literally take an hour. Restaurant shops usually take a little longer than others because usually you are grading every little detail.

Some examples of shops that I’ve done include: 

1. Restaurants. This ranges from cheaper restaurants where I’m reimbursed for around $30 worth of food, all the way up to nice steak houses where I get $100.
2. Dealerships. Bestmark has a ton of dealership shops available, but I only have done the phone call and scheduling services online secret shops.
   • I usually do about 4-5 of these a week and these are the easiest shops. You don’t have to drive anywhere and the surveys literally take one minute. And you get paid around $5 for them. Although recently they’ve lowered the payment to only $3, and there’s a ton more work involved. I had to cancel around 3 or 4 shops because they didn’t make it clear enough about the amount of work that I signed up for. And for $3, I’m not really willing to do too much.
   • They also have dealership secret shops where you go in and pretend you want a car. These usually pay around $20. This is something I’ve never done, and they have plenty of these available for everyone to do.  I’ve never done this because car salesmen scare me. I’m not ready for thousands of annoying phone calls and I’m afraid that I’d be stuck in a dealership for an hour while trying to run away from the salesperson.
3. Retail. I mainly do Estee Lauder. I’ve done a lot of these. I’ve gotten foundation, lotion, toner, face wash, concealer, lip gloss and so on, all for FREE! And these aren’t sample sizes, I’ve probably gotten over $200 in stuff, plus gotten paid around $10 on top for each shop as well.
   • I’ve also done a couple of Best Buy shops. These are easy too. You just survey a certain department (takes like a minute), and then you can just buy something small like a candy bar so that they have your receipt for proof that you were actually there and performed it. Best Buy shops usually pay around $13. Not a ton, but the Best Buy is along the way home from my work so I just pop in.

 

The highest paid shops I do are usually for restaurants. I’ve done a couple of nice restaurants where I had to eat over $100 worth of food. Crazy!  I’ve also seen Hotel mystery shops, but they’ve never been on a good day for me, so I’ve never been able to sign up.

Also, if you find that you cannot do a shop that you sign up for, all you do usually is contact your scheduler and say you need to reschedule or cancel. I’ve actually done this a lot lately, and they HATE it. So I wouldn’t recommend it. I have a horrible memory and will usually forget about the shop until it’s past the time that I’m supposed to do it. These schedulers will remember you, and if you’re good to them, they will give you good shops, so remember that!

Mystery shopping money will NOT make you rich. I want to make that clear. It’s just a nice form of side income, where I can get things I want for free! What I make from mystery shopping, I add to my vacation fund. So it’s a nice little addition every month.

If I want to eat at a nice restaurant that I would usually go to, then YES I would love to do a secret shop there. Those are always the greatest shops because you are paid to have fun.

P.S. Newlyweds on a Budget has a great post about how to become a mystery shopper. Check it out!

Also, if you join Bestmark, please say I referred you! My ID is MO4999