Paul Ritch asked:




If you’re looking for an unconventional Wahm job, then mystery shopping might be for you. The concept of mystery shopping or secret shopping is simple. You get assignments to visit a business place, make a purchase and then fill out a form to evaluate the customer service, quality of your purchase and other things about your experience.

Secret shopping is done by ordinary people who provide a company with feedback about their service. Companies hire mystery shopping for a wide variety of reasons. Some want to investigate the quality of their employees. Others may want to find out how their locations do with stocking items. There are many different reasons that a company looks to hire mystery shoppers.

Although companies can hire mystery shoppers directly, most of your mystery shopping jobs as a Wahm will come through a secret shopping company. As a mystery shopper, you’ll be asked to visit a wide variety of stores and businesses in your area. Sometimes you’ll be assigned to purchase clothing from a store in your local mall. Other times you’ll have to visit a coffee shop and rate the friendliness of the wait staff. After you gain experience with mystery shopping, you can receive assignments to eat at restaurants and stay at hotels.

As a secret shopper, you will not only get the chance to try out products and services for free, but you will also get paid. You can get paid in several different ways depending on the mystery shopping company. You can get paid at flat fee for completing the job, or sometimes you are just paid with the free product or service. Obviously the jobs that are paid a flat fee are more desirable. But when you are first starting out, you may need to take some of the other type of job just for experience.

Most mystery shopping companies pay by check on a monthly or biweekly basis. You’ll get paid for a shopping assignment when you complete the necessary paperwork on your shopping experience. Your paperwork can normally be filed electronically, although some companies require you to mail in your reviews. This can make the payment process slower.

To get started with mystery shopping, you’ll need to find a mystery shopping company to work for. Unfortunately, many of the companies that offer mystery shoppers assignments are frauds. Many will ask you to pay them for a list of mystery shopping opportunities. You should never, ever have to pay for someone to hire you and this is no different for mystery shopping. Becoming a mystery shopper is totally free when you find a reputable company.

When you start doing assignments, you will be asked to pay for the services or products that you will be trying. Although this may sound like a bad deal, the mystery shopping company will reimburse you for your purchase. The reason that they require you to pay upfront for your purchase is because the mystery shopping company doesn’t want to take the chance of your getting a product for free and then not turning in a review.

Although being a secret shopper can be rewarding, it’s not something that can be relied on for consistent monthly income. You’ll never make enough money as a mystery shopper to live on each month. However, you may get enough to pay your phone bill or electricity bill. When you add the perks of getting free meals, products and services, mystery shopping is a nice stream of income for any Wahm looking to make money in their area.



Anita

Max Hunter asked:




The reports of money to be made through mystery shopping are wildly divergent. Some people claim to work full-time as mystery shoppers and make as much as $40,000 to $50,000 per year. Some mystery shopping sites indicate that people who sign up with them can expect to be offered as many as 10 opportunities per day. Even the Wall Street Journal apparently published a widely quoted 2004 story about a woman who is a very successful mystery shopper, who had made $7,000 in one month.

What is the average person to make of all that? As the old saw goes, don’t quit your day job yet.

Other people who have tried the whole mystery shopping gig, acknowledge that it can be an interesting and profitable sideline or a lucrative addition to something like a retirement income. Two factors to consider before you decide to commit to a mystery shopping career are: how will it play out in my geographic area and what will be involved as far as transportation is concerned.

Larger, urban areas offer more possibilities for mystery shopping. A geographic area with a population of over 100,000, for example, is likely to have several malls, a distribution of independent stores, a business district where shopping is somewhat congregated, and fairly easy access to finding everything.

Small cities with only 30,000 or 40,000 people can be limited by the sheer number of businesses available. Larger metropolitan areas can present their own set of access problems, if the shopper has to travel substantial distances across a city to get to mystery shopping assignments. Public transportation is time consuming, and let’s face it, the price of gas is prohibitive.

There are mystery shopping jobs out there and they are obtainable, depending on your skills and circumstances. However, it is important to weight all of the various factors involved in a mystery shopping assignment carefully before agreeing to accept it.

First, make sure that it pays sufficiently to be worth your time. Many mystery shoppers won’t accept an assignment that does not include a fee in addition to the merchandise or service purchased. In other words, you may get a free meal or a free movie, but if you want to get full value for your time, make sure it also pays you a certain amount of real money that will pay for your gas and the time you spend filling out the report. Or, if you have plenty of time on your hands and the potential for seeing a movie for free is payment enough, go for it! After all, value is in the eye of the beholder.



Ethel

Terry Mitchell asked:




Chances are you`ve heard about these people, mystery shoppers, who get paid to do things like eat in fancy restaurants and buy things at nice stores. And, chances are, you`ve wondered how you can get a gig like that. This article will explain everything you need to know about mystery shopping.



What Is Mystery Shopping?



Companies usually don`t have a very good perspective on how they are serving their customers, so they need a consumer point of view. They hire mystery shoppers who pose as ordinary people to give them feedback on their customer service.



Since the majority of people who stop shopping at a store or eating at a restaurant do so because of a poor customer service experience, companies want to know what they can do to improve things and therefore retain their existing clients. That`s why they hire mystery shoppers. Any company that deals with the public can do this, from cafes to department stores to hairdressers, so the assignments tend to be quite varied.

What It Involves

As a paid shopper, you`ll be given assignments to enter a business and either buy something from them or take part in their service, such as getting a haircut at a salon. Throughout the experience, you`ll need to note any problems or issues that could be improved upon, as well as what they are doing right. Once you`ve finished the evaluation, you`ll need to fill in a form that will be sent to the company so they can take action.

Part of the job requirement includes doing things you might not ordinarily be comfortable with, such as complaining about your haircut or returning a product. This is to see how the staff reacts to these types of situations. You may also be required to make different requests to see how they are honored and how helpful the staff is.

Not all companies pay for this, many will give you something free in exchange for your help. For example, McDonald`s offers a free meal in exchange for an evaluation. Other businesses may offer free groceries or other products for the service you provide, which can be just as valuable as cash when you look at the price tag. In these cases, you`ll likely have to pay out of pocket and will then be reimbursed by the company.

How to Get the Job



There are numerous employment sites online that offer to get you a job as a mystery shopper, but many are just scams. Keep in mind that you shouldn`t have to pay in order work . . . the real companies will be free to sign up. However, there is no guarantee that you`ll be given any assignments.

Mystery shopping is a real job, but you do need to be careful who you go through since there are many scams out there that will charge you a fee to work and then never give you any jobs. Be wary and use your common sense to find a decent company to work for.



Alvin