Is Mystery Shopping Dead?

Hi All,

Question:

Is mystery shopping still a good way to make money from home, or have gas prices, mystery shopping scams and stores doing their own surveys made mystery shopping something to stay away from?

Answer From Coach Melanie:

The three things you named are concerns. High gas prices mean you have to work smarter as a mystery shopper to make a particular mystery shopping assignment viable enough to be worth your time. Think grouping mystery shopping assignments together, combining mystery shopping with merchandising assignments, doing mystery shops where your daily life takes you anyway and negotiating higher pay for a shop (yes there are times the pay for a mystery shopper job is negotiable).

Mystery shopper scams from a few bad apples mean you have to use common sense and know that if someone sends you pay upfront (like the current check scams do), run for the hills.

And yes, many stores now use their register tapes and receipts to get regular shoppers to give their opinion to win cash or merchandise or at least a discount on a future purchase.

On my United Airlines boarding pass for my trip last week, an invitation to complete a survey for the chance to win airline miles was offered (I am going to have fun with that one since they broke my luggage and told me in customer service that "that's what the luggage is for--protecting its contents"). Eating places like Baja Fresh, Johnny Rockets and Johnny Carinos all offer you a freebie or discount for doing a survey by phone or via the internet after eating at their establishments.

However, I do not believe that any of these items, or even all of them together are nails in the coffin of mystery shopping so to speak. Mystery shopping does remain a flexible, legitimate way to make some money from home, and I suspect that it always will.

As always though, if you are looking to be self-employed, mystery shopping is one income stream, and you should be open to adding others to get to your desired level of overall income and not put all your eggs in one basket. More on this concept behind self-employment coming soon.

So do you think mystery shopping is or isn't dead? Let me know what you think!

Have a great day and happy shopping !

Taking the mystery out of professional mystery shopping--Melanie Jordan http://www.mysteryshoppercoach.com/


Don't miss a post! Subscribe to my list Mystery Shopper Coach's Update to be notified when this blog is updated and receive my e-zine, subscriber-only discounts and more! CLICK HERE


Check out Melanie's other blogs:


Make Money In Foreclosures

http://www.youcanmakemoneywithforeclosures.com/


The Healthy Food Review at

http://www.thehealthyfoodreview.com/


Vegas Inside Scoop at

http://www.vegasinsidescoop.com/



Copyright 2008 Melanie R. Jordan E-Publishing

Adding Merchandising Assignments To Your Mystery Shopping Work

Hi All,

What's the most overlooked way to make money mystery shopping? Combining it with merchandising for a dual, home-based career. The more sporadic nature of mystery shopping can be reeled in by also doing merchandising. Merchandising is the "steady Eddie" to mystery shopping.

In case you didn't know, merchandising is The Perfect Work-At-Home Job, Part II! As I defined it in my book The Quick And Easy Guide To Making Money As A Merchandiser, "merchandising is the many different activities one does to support the movement out of a retailer's door" (no shoplifting is not merchandising).

Merchandisers do more physical, but generally not very hard work to set up signage and promotional displays, move and rearrange products on a store's shelves to conform to a retailer's strategy, inventory counts, making sure the right product is in the right place, in the right amounts at the right time and having coupons or other informational material on hand at the point of purchase.

Merchandisers can work by assignment like mystery shoppers do, or they may work hourly on a part-time or full-time basis. And doing mystery shopping assignments does not generally interfere with merchandising, and doing them together in the same geographic area can make both kinds of work much more worth your time than if they were done separately.

To learn more about merchandising, go to:

http://www.mysteryshoppercoach.com/merchandising.html

and check out my Merchandising FAQs here:

http://www.mysteryshoppercoach.com/merchandisingfaqs.html

Have a great day and happy shopping AND merchandising!

Taking the mystery out of professional mystery shopping--Melanie Jordan
http://www.mysteryshoppercoach.com/

Don't miss a post! Subscribe to my list Mystery Shopper Coach's Update to be notified when this blog is updated and receive my e-zine, subscriber-only discounts and more! CLICK HERE

Check out Melanie's other blogs:

Make Money In Foreclosures
http://www.youcanmakemoneywithforeclosures.com/

The Healthy Food Review at
http://www.thehealthyfoodreview.com/

Vegas Inside Scoop at
http://www.vegasinsidescoop.com/

Copyright 2008 Melanie R. Jordan E-Publishing