How to Get a Gig As a Mystery Shopper

Startup Journal:

When Kim Keenum, 39, walks through the parking lot of a supermarket in Carol Stream, Ill., other customers may be searching for their lists, but she’s counting abandoned carts and looking for trash. “See that crushed beverage cup?” she says. “There’s no liquid next to it, so it’s been there for a while.”

Mrs. Keenum is a mystery shopper, paid to act like a regular customer of banks, retail stores, restaurants, or even government offices, but is really there to report on cleanliness, food quality and customer service. There are about 200,000 “active” shoppers in the U.S., according to the Mystery Shopping Providers Association, a Dallas-based trade group that trains and certifies prospective shoppers. Although the pay for mystery shopping is low — usually just a few dollars plus a voucher for free food or merchandise — the field is competitive and applications deluge the country’s 750 mystery-shopping companies, hired by client firms to recruit mystery shoppers, much like a temp service.

You can, however, rise quickly to the top of their lists by understanding how the industry works and by being very observant.

Photo by worldmegan.

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