Mystery Shopping
© By Barry Stein

Mystery shopping is an excellent way to make extra money. In
fact, some people make a full time living doing it.

There are many mystery shopping companies that will pay you
to shop, eat at restaurants and take part in focus groups.

A mystery shop consists of getting paid to go into a
business without the employee's knowledge and reporting back
to the mystery shopping company.

A focus group is when you get paid to sit down with other
people who are also getting paid and discuss new products or
services.

Mystery shopping jobs and focus groups are easier to find if
you live in or near a large metropolitan area.

After you do a mystery shop you answer some questions and
file your report with the mystery shopping company. These
reports are usually set up as a series of questions and
often can be completed quickly.

The reason they have mystery shops and focus groups is so
that companies can get feedback on their employees, products
and services. That way they can see where there might be
problems and make the necessary changes to improve things.

A few years ago I had some free time and I wanted to make
some extra money. I took a course, How to Become a Mystery
Shopper, at a local community college. After completing the
course I registered with a few mystery shopping companies
online.

You can do a search on Google for "mystery shopping." Bypass
the mystery shopping websites that are trying to sell
something. You want to find the mystery shopping websites
for the actual mystery shopping companies. These mystery
shopping companies will never charge you any type of fee to
register or to do mystery shops or focus groups.

Be sure to read all the free mystery shopping information
you come across. There is an art to being a good mystery
shopper. Basically you are like a reporter. You will never
add your feelings or what you think to a mystery shopping
report. Your job is to just answer the questions, report the
facts and describe what actually happened during your shop.

You never want to give your own recommendations. That is not
why you are hired. If the mystery shopping company wants a
consultant, they will hire one. All they want you to do is
to answer questions with just the facts of your mystery
shopping assignment.

Once you find a few mystery shopping companies you can then
register with them. They'll contact you by email whenever
they have a mystery shopping job in your area. You'll only
respond to the emails when you want to do the shop.
Otherwise you can just delete the email. You get to pick and
choose the shops you want to do.

A couple of years ago I did some apartment shops for the
Jancyn Evaluation Company that took me about half an hour to
complete. Since they paid $25, I was basically being paid
$50 an hour.

You can register with the Jancyn Evaluation Shops Company.
They may pay more than $25 today for apartment shops since
it has been about two years since I've done an apartment shop
for them.

Jancyn also does a lot of shops and surveys for the Ross
Dress for Less retail stores. I'm not sure if Jancyn still
has a business relationship with Ross, but I once handed out
survey forms in one of the local Ross stores here in the
Seattle area and made $500 for about 30 hours of work.

Here's the URL for Jancyn if you'd like to register with
them to do some shops. http://www.jancyn.com/ 

Another mystery shopping company that I get a lot of email
requests for shops for is the Secret Shopper Company. They
seem to specialize in shops for Veterinary Clinics. They pay
$15 plus up to $100 payment NOT including tip + $10. The
only catch is that you have to own a cat or dog, which I
don't, but maybe you do. Here's their URL
http://www.secretshopper.com 

OK, I've saved the best for last. Fieldwork specializes in
setting up focus groups for some of the biggest companies in
the US. They pay $50 to $75 for a focus group meeting that
usually lasts about an hour.

The last one I did with them was for some research for eBay.
They were trying to come up with a name for a new category
on their website.

Fieldwork is located throughout the US in major metropolitan
areas. You'll have to visit their website to see if they are
located near where you live.

It's great if you have children since Fieldwork does a lot
of focus groups involving children. Perhaps you can talk
your kids into splitting the fee with you. Again, the pay
usually works out to be about $50 to $75 an hour.

Unfortunately I have no children, but the next time I get an
email for a focus group for children I'll borrow a couple of
my neighbor's children.

Here's the link for Fieldwork. http://www.fieldwork.com/ 

Now you have a basic idea of how the mystery shopping and
focus groups work. Start searching for more mystery shopping
websites and get paid to shop, eat and taking part in focus
groups. It's easy money!
 

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