Comments on: “I WANT TU B UR MSYTERY SHOPPR”

By: Cathy Stucker

Cathy Stucker — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 02:07:07 +0000

@Powderpuff: You’ve got it! It can take some time and dues paying to get the point you are at, but mystery shopping companies LOVE to find shoppers upon whom they can rely, and they reward them.

By: Powderpuff

Powderpuff — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:35:08 +0000

Just say no is a workable philosophy. I have found that most mystery shopping jobs pay far less than minimum wage and it simply doesn’t pay to do them. Instead, I have limited my mystery shopping activity to well paying assignments. Companies seem to realize that I am a business person who keeps my commitments and produces reports that are thorough and camera ready. The jobs roll into my email inbox. I guess my point is that if we offer quality then quality tends to be returned to us by the mystery shopping companies. (This philosophy works in life, not just in mystery shopping.) And there is real fun to be had when the shopping and writing are rewarded with fair payment. Thank you for allowing me this comment.

By: Cathy Stucker

Cathy Stucker — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:35:55 +0000

I agree that some of those emails are appalling. Some are bad enough to make me question whether I want to work for a company that hires people who can not seem to write a decent sentence.

However, playing Devil's advocate here, the skills required to be a good shopper are not necessarily the same ones required to be a good scheduler. Although some schedulers are also editors, most are not. Schedulers should have acceptable writing skills, but a scheduler sending an email with a typo is not a big deal to me. (I am not referring to the emails full of errors, but the occasional typo.)

As for pay rates, those $5 shops are why my computer keyboard has a "delete" key. Thanks but no thanks. What is even better is when a mystery shopping company wants you to spend time going through a testing process (for which you are not paid, of course) to have the chance to maybe get one of those $5 shops. Uh, no.

Just say no to companies that do not respect secret shoppers.

By: gloworm53

gloworm53 — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 17:43:23 +0000

As a MSPA gold-certified shopper of 1 1/2 years and a faithful reader of this blog, I have found a topic that warrants my addressing. Without mentioning any company names, I am sure we have all received emails and shop instructions loaded with typos and just plain bad grammar. I often wonder what type of correspondence the client receives from the shopping company given the stringent set of guidelines to which we must adhere. I am also leery about the scheduler’s comment that they pay “pretty well.” We all have done shops where we must report comments in each section of the report that is sometimes pages long. In addition, there is also a request that we upload business cards, photos, etc. Often for these shops the shopper pay is $5 - $7 dollars for 1-2 hours of work. No offense to anyone, but you can make more money at the fast food joints flipping burgers for what we are sometimes paid.

By: Cathy Stucker

Cathy Stucker — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:53:05 +0000

The comment I quoted at the beginning of the post came from the owner of a mystery shopping company. I do not believe that he was speaking for the industry as a whole, but for his company. I do not know what pay scale his company offers--it may in fact be higher than that offered by others.

Also, for most shoppers the time required to complete reports decreases with experience. I know that when I started it took me FOREVER to do a report. After doing them for a while, I got faster because I figured out what the heck I was doing. There are still reports that can take an hour or more, but most do not.

@JENSPYR, it is up to us as independent contractors to decide which assignments are worthwhile for us and which companies we want to work with. If a company does not offer pay that makes their shops worth it, dump 'em. That is true of any work, including mystery shopping.

By: JENSPYR

JENSPYR — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 16:03:27 +0000

I understand the schedulers concern regarding incomplete evaluations or those with poor grammar. I must comment on one thing she points out. The scheduler states, “I think in most cases we pay pretty well.” This is true to run in and do the shop ($9.00-$15.00 for a 10-20 minute task), however, when the evaluator is asked for written details for several questions (especially on a shop with a lot of negatives responses). The report can sometimes take an hour or more to put in the computer. That is not good pay. I love Mystery Shopping, but it does iritate me when people forget that are job does not end at the shop.
P.S. I didn’t check my grammar, hope it passes.