Wondered if anyone has any experience working as a 'mystery shopper': any catch?

Wondered if anyone has any experience as working as a 'mystery shopper' or if they know of anyone who has had same... Is there a catch to it, whats the catch? You know when they say 'if it sounds too good to be true then chances are it is'... I'd appreciate your thoughts on this...

Re: mystery shopper - a mystery to me, please help solve

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Re: mystery shopper - a mystery to me, please help solve

There is an old thread here on mystery shopping.

Re: Wondered if anyone has any experience as working as a 'mystery shopper': any catc

catcarraccoo said:

Wondered if anyone has any experience as working as a 'mystery shopper' or if they know of anyone who has had same... Is there a catch to it, whats the catch? You know when they say 'if it sounds too good to be true then chances are it is'... I'd appreciate your thoughts on this...

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There is no catch... market research agencies will employ people, on behalf of their clients, to purchase goods or services and to give an objective analysis of same. Check recruitireland.ie, these jobs are frequently advertised.

I've done it before... not really my cup of tea.. can't see myself doing it again.

I did a couple of restaurant visits and to be honest it cost me money. Cos who's going to go to a restaurant alone and they only paid for my meal, and that was a very specific order. When they cut the payment to shoppers I quit.

I looked into this (figured I'd get paid to "shop" rather than paying to shop ) but decided it really wasn't worth it. Everything else aside, most of the jobs only paid €15-20 which isn't much really when you consider the work involved. You have to read the spec and the scenario they give you, go to (or sometimes call) the shop or business, engage in that particular scenario and then prepare and submit a report. All in all I'd say a regular "shop" would be a minimum of two hours work plus any petrol/travel. The company I checked out didn't pay your tax so you can take off at least 20%. As a higher rate tax payer I would have come away with about €2.50 per hour. I know there would be ways of increasing that return but given I was only wanting a few hours work a week it would have cost me more in accountant fees than the job was worth.

It might be worth looking into if you want to make some sort of career out of it just be sure and keep your tax affairs in order and put the money aside.

I've done it for hotels and while it can be fun, it is also hard work with a detailed questionaire to complete - reservations, arrival/check-in, bedrooms, bathroom, general areas, breakfast, dinner etc. etc.

You have to remember that it is work and you cannot wander around with a pen and notebook so you have to be able to remember details, staff names etc.

You do get to stay in the hotel and have a meal with wine and you get €80 to cover incidental expenses.

Its nice to be able to mention bad service in the report but even nicer to detail good service.

Hi, I answered an advert to be a mystery shopper. It was to go to a large department store in the west of Ireland, €15 was the pay for one visit. I would have had to carry a secret camera as I bought a large item of furniture. I would have had to pay with my own money and then claim it back. At the end of the purchase I would return to the store and announce that I was a mystery shopper and cancel the purchase.There was a lot of paperwork to complete which had to be posted back with the video recording which had to be good quality showing the salesman/womans face or no pay would be forthcoming. What do you think of that? needless to say I didn't do the job.

I get paid really well €35 euro a month, double in November, December and January. I don't have to spend any of money in store on the visit either. A lot of times I do but it would be money I would have spent anyway.

schmile said:

I get paid really well €35 euro a month,

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For how many incidents/reports?

Complainer said:

For how many incidents/reports?

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Just the one. Have a look around ask the staff a few questions come home and fill in a standardised report. Its about an a4 page long so only takes about 10 minutes. The questions are the same every month so whilst the first one is a bit tricky to try to remember everything you got to look for/ ask after a couple of months its easy. I have been doing this for going on 4 years now and the report has only changed once so its pretty easy.