752: $500/week as a Mystery Shopper

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1:22She's been doing mystery shops forever and over the last 10 years has helped 25 ,000 other mystery shoppers get their start with this low overhead side hustle from ishopagp.com. Mercedes Eckert, welcome to the Side Hustle Show. Hi, Nick. Thank you for having me. I'm excited for this one. Start me off with maybe a recent win of yours or could be from a student of yours. What's possible in this realm of mystery shopping? I just had a shopper last week. She did several apartment mystery shops where she got paid to go and tour apartments. She made$850 in less than two days. That sounds like a win.

2:05This is going around as a prospective tenant. Yes. Just pretending that she was looking for somewhere to lease and watch the leasing agents, how they gave her a tour of the property, what they said, if they really sold her on calling that place home and getting her to fill out an application. Yeah, that's all she had to do. Okay. And so my understanding is this is probably coming down from corporate, if this is a big commercial apartment company, and they want to see how their employees on the ground are kind of like following the training manual, following the handbook. Are they sticking to the script?

2:40Are they being personable? And is there a way for them to get some boots on the ground experience or visualization on what's actually happening? Exactly. They want to know what's going on from a customer's point of view. And so as the mystery shopper, that's what we deliver. We deliver insight from a real customer's point of view. And they're able to take that information and do what they will with it. Maybe it is update their training. Maybe it is hiring more employees. Maybe even terminating some that they have. There's so many things that they can do with the feedback that they get from mystery shoppers.

3:14Yeah, we don't want to get anybody fired, but a coaching opportunity like, Like, hey, you know, why didn't you follow the guidelines here or something? Was it$850 in two days? That's a big win. Does that come around, you know, consistently? I imagine you got to piece together a handful of gigs where on the plus side, maybe no two days are alike. But at the same time, it's kind of, I never know what the next week is going to look like. Yeah. So with mystery shopping, people who do this more so like full time, they like to do what's called route shopping. They piece together multiple shops in one route and knock them out and make a lot of money in a short amount of time.

3:51But work is consistent. There are thousands and thousands of shops, especially across the U.S. Could you do it full time? Could it be a full time thing? Heck yeah. I know a shopper. He makes over six figures a year. Wow. For mystery shopping full time. I'm not kidding. One of our shoppers, she did$65 ,000 and some change in 2025. So, yeah. Okay. Wow. All right, well, let's get into this. Where do I start? How do I start looking for these gigs that are nearby and trying to figure out what's legit, what's not? There's so many different options you have as far as provider companies that provide the mystery shopping jobs for you.

4:30So we always tell people you can DIY it, do some research, or you can get started through a mystery shopping organization where you'll get your training and they'll connect you with legitimate partners and things like that. But once you're contracted with the providers, you're able to go out and start shopping the same day, picking up different mystery shops. So it's very flexible. You can do it on your own time. It's really a great gig. Are there any favorites of yours of these 100, 150 plus different mystery shopping providers that are no brainers or does it kind of vary by location? I would say reality based group is a good one.

5:10But here's what I have found. I've been mystery shopping personally for over 13 years and that changes up. So every mystery shopping company has its own set of clients. So you could work with one company that they specialize in the auto industry. So they have like a lot of car dealerships and mechanic type shops, whereas another company might have a lot of food shops, fast food, fine dining, casual dining. So really, it just depends on the person. And once you get your feet wet, you kind of understand like, okay, I really like to do these shops. This company has these shops. I like working for them.

5:47So for me personally, it kind of changes just depending on the season of life I'm in and what I'm enjoying doing at that point. Yeah. How do I find the one that's going to pay me to go to Hawaii or pay me to go to sporting events or something? On iShop, do you have a list or like a directory, like just a centralized database or something for people listening? Yeah, we will connect our shoppers with our partner companies, which obviously there's scams out there in the industry. So it's important to get your information from an organization that they're associated with so you know that they're legitimate.

6:20So we have a list that we will send shoppers so that they can get started with them. Yeah. The one that I had signed up for a few years ago, maybe was MSPA, it was like Mystery Shopper Provider Association. But it was not necessarily, I mean, maybe you can break it down. I think that was just like the industry organization, not necessarily the companies that are sending out requests for mystery shoppers. Yeah. So my company, iShop, it's the same thing as like the MSPA, right? We're just a little newer on the block. So, but essentially we do the same things. Like we recruit, we train shoppers. Yes.

6:56So we are not the provider, but we are the recruiter. We are the people that you go to, to kind of have a safe home base as a mystery shopper. So most mystery shoppers are either with the MSPA or they're with iShop. Okay. My understanding was maybe it was like an industry certification almost where we're going to say this is a legit provider of mystery shops. Is that not right? No, it's, yeah, it's the same thing. That's exactly what we do. We don't call our certifications. You get a cert certificate, but yeah, it's the same thing. Got it. So maybe step one is finding the mystery shop providers because it's not like you're going to roll up to Target and ask to speak to the manager and introduce yourself and be saying off a business card and say, hey, I'm a local mystery shopper.

7:40Let me know what you need. It's almost always through these different providers. Yeah, no, you're not going to target.com and sign up to be a mystery shopper. That's normally not how it works. So these companies, what they do is they outsource their mystery shopping programs to providers. And so you are working as a mystery shopper, you work directly for the provider, right? So you would contract out with them. Okay. And is it a best practice to just cast as wide a net as possible and sign up with 10, 20, 50, 100 of these just to kind of make sure you have a steady stream of opportunities coming across your desk?

8:17That's a question we get a lot. A lot of new shoppers, they're like, oh, my gosh, I want to see every shop that's out there. Realistically, yes, you can sign up with however many providers as you want. But I would suggest starting off with a few and then going from there because what happens, you can get overwhelmed. I mean, it's like signing up for DoorDash 150 times, you know, like that would be a lot. So you want to start with, I'd say, just like a handful to get in, get your feet wet and start learning the ropes and then expand your, like you say, cash or net. Just go at a good pace for you.

8:52Okay. Do you find it's app-based like a DoorDash or web-based or email-based where the opportunities kind of come in? Or do you have to sit and hit refresh every Monday to see what new ones are available? How does it work mechanically? Yeah. So I don't send people to apps because it confuses people. There are a few mystery shopping apps, right? But they're third parties, so they're not necessarily providers. But what you'll want to do is you want to work for the mystery shopping companies individually. Like you need to actually go to their website. That's where all their shops are going to be.

9:28And you're going to be able to see that as opposed to going to an app. You're typically going to, number one, you're not going to see everything that's available. Number two, it's going to be the lower paying shops that you're seeing on there. Okay. What's typical in terms of the rate of pay or what should I have a little bit of a discerning taste for and say, eh, that's not really worth it? Like what's in your mind, what qualifies as good? Well, here's the thing. I've learned over the past decade that everybody's different. So you do have a personal preference as to what is worth it for you. But I like to go back to the actual data that my company has.

10:06And I can say that on average, people who do this as a side hustle, meaning they have their full-time jobs or whatever they're doing for their main source of income and they're just doing this on the side. They average between$200 and$500 a week just doing this on the side. And that does not mean that they're trading, you know, 20 hours for$200. You're not paid by the hour as a mystery shopper. You're paid by the job. So$200 can be made in one day, you know, if you're route shopping. I think my personal best in one day,$600 in one day. So even if you're doing this as a side hustle, maybe just going out one or two days a week, you can still hit that$200 to$500 a week.

10:55And again, it is consistent. And it would be feasible to do nights and weekends as a side hustle? Yeah. So most people, like I said, they do it on the side. So they're doing it after they get off work on their off days, like the weekend. Can you describe what you mean by route shopping? So route shopping is where you're piecing together multiple mystery shops in one route. This is how you make the big money. So what you'll do is, you know, pick a day, right? Okay, I'm going to pick a day. And then I am going to string together, let's say five mystery shops. I leave my house, I go from one mystery shop to the next and get back home.

11:32So that is a route of shops. And that is how you maximize your time and earning power. And this would be through the provider and they would say something like, we need you to go check out five neighborhood targets. And so you're going around from like something like that, where it's the same task, just at different locations. You can do that or you can piece together different types of shops. So a lot of times, like when I would go out, I would do apartment mystery shops and then I'd put in like a lunch, like a breakfast and a lunch mystery shop. So then my lunch and, you know, my food is taken care of.

12:07Nice, nice. Yeah. Throw in a gas station mystery shop. So I've got gas. So it's not just, hey, we've got like a package. You actually, as a shopper, can piece this together from multiple companies. Okay. Yeah, I like it from that perspective. Maybe it's worth signing up just to get free meals out of the deal, free gas out of the deal. That's cool. Yeah, for sure. And you got people that do it for that too. They're just like, this is my fun money. Yeah. Tell me about your$600 day. What did that entail work-wise? And then you got to write up a report or kind of like a review of the employees you interacted with, taking pictures, like sharing stuff like that.

12:44What was the actual work involved? Yeah. So one of my favorite routes that I used to do all the time was car washes. So I can just tell you every month I would take one day a month and I would go out and get my car washed about 20 times. I would not get out of the car. I did not have to get out of the car and literally would make$600 and be back in time for dinner at my house with my kids. What that entailed was getting a car wash, getting the name of the, you know, employee who would greet me, maybe getting a few shots of the inside of the car wash. And then the report usually would take me under 15 minutes to do.

13:25Okay. Primarily from your phone or are you like writing it up on the laptop at your home? I am a laptop girly. So yes, you can do this from a phone, but I 100 % prefer to do it on a laptop. It's just cleaner. It's a wider space. My phone's not getting notifications while I'm trying to fill things out. Okay. I've got more with Mercedes in just a moment, including building up your reputation as a mystery shopper and a couple common scams to avoid coming up right after this. You know that feeling when you finally finish a cleanup project you've been putting off? That's what switching to our partner Gusto feels like.

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15:59And so that's kind of what thinking about what the companies would want to know or what kind of data that they're trying to collect. And you're probably not the only person that's sending them that data. They want a consensus across maybe multiple locations, multiple employees that people are interacting with, multiple shoppers, and then kind of start to build a story of what's really happening on the ground. Is there anything that you're doing to market yourself or set yourself up for success or build a positive profile with any of these providers to have more gigs sent your way? Yeah, absolutely.

16:34So building a reputation is a big one. The mystery shopping industry is like a$2 billion industry, right? It's crazy because a lot of people don't know about it, don't know how to get started. And that's a whole nother conversation. But it's a big industry, but it's also very small. The key players, we all know each other, right? And everybody talks. Oh, this shoppers, they've done really good work over here. Okay, well, then we're sending them here and here. So word of mouth, oh man, it spreads very fast in this industry. So the key is to number one, do good work, right? Don't flake out on shops that you have to do.

17:10Do what you need to do and do it on time, right? And then what you need to do is really be associated with an organization because that's where you're going to be able to actually network with the company reps and company owners. There are conferences, mystery shopping conferences, and that's where you can actually get in front of them with your face in person. And I mean, there are ways to market yourself to the providers and those are primarily it. It's just having, building a good reputation by good work and getting in front of them in person. Do you ever have to start to go in disguise if you're going to the same locations like month after month?

17:52Why is this lady always here? Why is she taking notes and taking all these pictures and stuff? That's hilarious. Some of the mystery shops, they do want you to like dress the part. So if it's at a luxury facility or something like that, you need to dress, you know, dress pretty nice. Some of them maybe rarely, but some might have like a dress code as far as like they want you to wear khaki pants and, you know, a button up shirt or something like that. But for the most part, you can just be yourself. Okay. There's enough employee turnover or switching where you're not drawing suspicion to yourself.

18:23Like, why are they here all the time? Exactly. So one of the things that they do is called rotation. So mystery shoppers, they're not going to send in the same mystery shopper every week to the same location. Because eventually the employees are going to figure that out. Like, oh, you know, that's the mystery shopper. I think employees, they pride themselves on trying to figure out who the shopper is. So they have a rotation. So as a shopper, you know, there might be a shop that you do this month that they say, okay, you can't do this for another 30 days. So that is one way to protect your identity so you don't have to dress up and all the things.

19:02Another reason for the rotation is just to keep fresh faces coming in. So with this industry, people ask me all the time, is it going to get saturated? You're recruiting new shoppers? No, they need fresh faces. I mean, I just had a meeting with a company, a vice president of one of the companies last week. He's like, man, we release 35 ,000, 40 ,000 shops a month. We need fresh faces. Yeah. So there's so much to go around and there's a lot more room in this industry. Okay. So doing the jobs that you said you were going to do, being on time, being thorough in your write-ups and your reports, kind of following the instructions or the guidelines there.

19:47I imagine they're going to have like the questionnaire to fill out after the fact, where it's not like a blank page. you write us a five paragraph essay about your experience. Anything else that you're doing to kind of bolster your reputation and get more jobs flowing your way? Honestly, that's it. Doing good work, getting in front of the company reps. They talk. And so whenever there is a good shopper, somebody that does good work, they turn in their reports on time. They're sharing that with the other companies. It's not a competition. You know, everybody knows everybody and their friends. And, you know, hey, if you know somebody that can help with this shop, we want to know about them.

20:24And so they kind of just spread your name for you. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. You mentioned showing up at industry conferences and it's like, it shouldn't surprise me at this point that, of course, there's a mystery shopper conference and you even run one yourself, right? Yeah. So there's only two. It's ours and the other organization. So, yeah, like this year we'll be in Vegas. Shoppers come in from all over North America. The companies are there. And so it's a great time and way to learn, to up-level, and to market yourself. How many people do you expect to show up? Last year, we had over 100.

20:58Our first conference was in 22. So we've been growing every year. So hopefully this year, you know, we have closer to 200. So we're excited about it. Very cool. You mentioned earlier that there are some scams in the industry and was hoping you could speak to one or two common scams or what to be on the lookout for there. Unfortunately, there's so many scams out there today. But when it comes to mystery shopping, it's just got a bad rep because of scams. The good thing is scams are usually easy to spot. Your red flag should go off because usually it just sounds too good to be true. So if you get like a check in the mail and the check is like, hey, it's a$2 ,000 check.

21:42We want you to go cash this. And it just doesn't make sense. OK, but usually it's a check in the mail and they ask you to cash it in exchange for whatever they're going to ask you to do. Common sense tells us jobs and companies don't typically pay you before you go and do your work. So that's an easy one to spot. But there have been people that I think like, oh, my gosh, I really need this money. They want to believe it. And they'll go cash that check and bam, their whole bank account's hacked. So you just want to be careful. Things like that don't necessarily make sense. Don't try to make it make sense because it's probably a scam.

22:23Yeah. So what's a scam? The check bounces and you get an overdraft? How does that benefit the scammer, though? Listen, so I think what happens is once they cash that check, Like they're able to, I don't know how they do it, but hack into your account. So what you have to do, I had this happen to one girl a few years ago, and I told her immediately, like, call your bank. You have to like close down the account. It's a nightmare. So I don't know the ins and outs of the scamming part because I'm not well versed on how they do all that. I just know how they present it to you. Yeah, my wife had one of these as a photographer and it was somebody reached out.

23:01We're having a reunion. You know, this is the date. This is the venue. Are you available? You know, check the calendar. Yeah, that's fine. And then it was, well, my bank won't let me do electronic transfer. So is it OK to pay by check? And it was like, we haven't talked about contracts or rates or really anything yet. It was a weird thing to say up front. And then it was kind of like, I think this is a scam. I don't understand really what the scam is, but it's one that we've come across. Anything else aside from this check cashing one? The other one is gift cards. So if they tell you, hey, we want you to go buy 10 gift cards at Walgreens and then scratch off the back and send us the code.

23:41No, don't do that. You're never getting reimbursed for that. Yeah, you're not getting reimbursed. And they'll promise you like, well, we'll reimburse you. No. When it comes to legitimate mystery shopping, you're not getting paid ahead of time. I mean, that would just not work. So anytime somebody promises you money ahead of time, it's usually a scam. You know, some of the stuff you are going to have to, like in your example, pay for the car washes as you go through. Swipe your card or pay cash or, you know, buy the meal at the restaurant and then kind of trust that you're going to get reimbursed, right?

24:13Yeah. So there are shops that do require you to buy something and there are shops that do not require you to buy something. So, for instance, if I am doing a mystery shop at a place like a car wash or a movie theater or a restaurant, Those are places you really can't evaluate without actually being a customer and buying something, right? So you would pay up front and then you would get reimbursed. But as long as you're with a legitimate company, it's nothing to be scared about. They're going to pay you back on their payday. But then there are shops that don't require purchases. And I like to tell people that because I think that's one of the biggest questions that we get is, do I have to pay for things up front?

24:52And so if a shop requires a purchase, yes, you pay up front. But again, going back to my favorite types of mystery shops, the apartment mystery shops. I'm not buying anything. I'm literally getting paid to tour an apartment and evaluate the leasing professional. I'm not asked to put down a deposit on an apartment. I don't have to do any of that. So there's shops for everybody, really. It's very flexible as far as the pay structure and the types of shops that you can do. There's something for everybody. If you had to guess an hourly rate based on what you put in, what would be a range? I'll give you a lower average, 25 to 40.