Mystery Shopping Jobs

What’s the draw?

People become mystery shoppers for a lot of reasons. Some are looking for careers while others are looking for supplementary incomes to help bolster a budget. In fact, mystery shopping is a very popular job for stay-at-home moms and students. The flexibility mystery shopping offers as well as the additional income earned from mystery shopping are two of the most attractive qualities of the job. As a result, demographics such as students and stay-at-home moms (those who require flexible schedules) make up a pool of people who are the most common mystery shoppers.

In general, the majority of people who work as a mystery shopper do so in conjunction with another form of employment. While it is true that some people are able to make careers out of mystery shopping the majority of employees are part time. Simply put, mystery shopping is more popular as a supplemental income job because it is more attractive to people with complicated schedules. You see, most mystery shoppers are allowed to pick their own hours and are only given assignments when they have the free time in which to do so. For example, students who are mystery shoppers often ask for assignments while on a break, or during a time when their school commitments are less demanding. This freedom to schedule is in part the largest attractive quality, aside from earning extra money, in why people become mystery shoppers.

Mystery shopping also allows people to earn money doing something they enjoy. While a person is of course shopping, and the job holds a certain allure in this aspect, mystery shoppers also enjoy interacting with people and working in an atmosphere that reflects a non-traditional workspace. Mystery shoppers are often people with a strong interest in consumer trends and seasonal products. Thus, they enjoy working in an atmosphere where they have a strong sense of what is in the market place, what is being purchased and where to go in order to purchase those things.

Mystery shopping also has its perks. In some cases, mystery shoppers are allowed to keep the products they purchase while on assignment. This might mean some makeup or DVDs on top of the money they earn hourly for the job. Of course there are limits and exceptions to the products mystery shoppers are allowed to keep and are reimbursed for and mystery shoppers are rarely, if ever, awarded high-ticket items such as TVs, that may have been part of their shopping assignment.

Thus, people become mystery shoppers for many different reasons. The ability to make extra money, the ability to do so with a complicated schedule, the ability to pick their own hours and the sheer enjoyment of shopping and interacting with people and products in the market place. Mystery shopping truly represents a job that is growing in popularity because of these job qualities and is one that more and more people are taking advantage of.