There are hundreds of companies looking for mystery shoppers, but how can you find the companies looking for shoppers where you live, work and shop? Here are some tips to find mystery shopper jobs close to you.
First of all, it is a good idea to apply to as many legitimate mystery shopping companies as possible. However, some of the companies to which you apply will have few or no jobs available in your town, and you will not always know this before you apply. If you are just starting out, you may want to jumpstart your shopping opportunities by applying first to companies that you know have shops in your area.
There are a few things you can do to identify the companies actively looking for shoppers where you live. A simple way to do this is to register with Jobslinger, a free mystery shopping referral service. Jobslinger aggregates job postings from several sources, so you can find many opportunities in one place.
When you find an assignment listed on Jobslinger it will tell you which company is offering the assignment and how to apply for it. Even if you are not selected for that particular secret shopper job, you will have access to future shops in your area once you are in the mystery shopping company’s shopper data base.
Of course, even if a secret shopping company does not have shops local to you today, they may acquire a new client tomorrow with locations near you. Applying to as many companies as possible means that you are in the shopper data bases when those new assignments become available. My list of legitimate secret shopping companies will keep you busy for a while. Apply to a couple of them every day, or spend a couple of hours once a week submitting applications.
It is possible that companies in your city or state may have many local jobs. The company may have more contacts, and thus more clients, close to where they are located. Applying first to companies in your state may help you to find more mystery shopper jobs faster.
That does not mean that you should limit yourself to applying to mystery shopping companies located near you, though. Although I have worked for several local companies here in Texas, I have also gotten great mystery shops from companies located across the country. It does not matter where the mystery shopping company is located, it matters where their clients have locations. A mystery shopping company with a contract to evaluate all locations of a national company may need secret shoppers in nearly every city and state. The same applies to mystery shopping in Canada and other countries, too.
If you want to find more mystery shopper assignments in your town, start by registering at Jobslinger and applying to companies listing jobs local to you. Next, apply to mystery shopping companies in your state or province. Then, continue applying to all of the companies you can. Remember never to pay a fee to apply to any company, as legitimate mystery shopper opportunities do not require you to pay.