Let me introduce you to the world of mystery shopping. If you’ve ever worked in retail, food service, or property management, you’ve probably heard about it. If you haven’t worked in these spaces, then you still may be aware of it because it’s been around for a long time.
Mystery shopping, also referred to as secret shopping, is a way for companies to evaluate their employees in real time and through a customer perspective. Employees at stores, restaurants, apartment communities, and other establishments where customer service drives success have certain methods and requirements that the companies want them to follow so that they can close sales and keep customers coming back.
A lot of these companies look for assistance from mystery shopping companies. These companies rely on outside help from secret shoppers. This creates a big opportunity for people like you and me to make extra money.
I first discovered mystery shopping as a way to earn extra income in my twenties. I was a full-time graduate student with a part-time job and needed a way to earn extra money. Having relied on retail and food service to make ends meet in years past, I had head of mystery shopping before. The possibility of a secret shopper kept us all on our toes, mainly because we were afraid of getting reprimanded or even losing our jobs if we got a bad review. Little was known about mystery shoppers back then and it was all very secretive. I had no idea where they came from or who they were employed or what they looked like.
Being a broke college student will make you look for creative ways to bring in extra cash, so I started a deep dive into learning about mystery shopping companies during that time. To my surprise, there were a lot of them! Companies brought in secret shoppers as independent contractors to evaluate employees and businesses. The age of the Internet made it easy to sign up to do work for these companies, so I dove in.
Back when I started doing this, I experimented with everything to see what paid best. There were grocery store shops, which were easy but only yielded around $13 per shop at the time. Restaurant shops were fun because you would get to dine out and often had to order extras like appetizers and/or desert and then would get reimbursed for the whole meal afterwards. These are very popular and go fast! I also discovered apartment mystery shopping and ended up doing several of these. Although they require a lot of time and effort, there was potentially a much bigger payout with these back then and especially now. Apartment shop pay was $25 per shop when I started with the company I contracted with. However, apartment shop pay has gone up a lot then and I recently learned that now you can make $25 to $125 per shop depending on the company and the shop requirements. My personal favorite company for apartment shopping that I have done a lot of work through over the years is EPMS.
My goal was to earn an additional income and the year I first did it, I earned around $2500 from being a mystery shopper. It was not easy money and I had to work for it, but it was fun and on my own terms and the work was interesting. This was around twenty years ago, so the payout now would be higher.
It is important to note that mystery shoppers are typically not considered employees. They are instead categorized as independent contractors. Mystery shopping companies will typically clarify this upfront in the sign-up process and make you acknowledge this when you apply. Most people do mystery shopping for extra money because the payment is not like receiving a regular paycheck. You won’t get paid regularly every week or two weeks. Most mystery shopping companies pay once a month and payment will of course depend on what jobs you took and when.
If mystery shopping sounds like something you may be interested in, I encourage you to check it out! Best way to get started is by searching Google for mystery shopping companies near you.
