I’m sure you have seen the ads that claim you can get paid to shop and make between $25-$75 an hour doing it. Basically the ads are true; you can make extra money by getting paid to shop although they are embellishing the amount of money you will make.
What the ads are talking about is called mystery shopping. Retail stores, grocery stores, restaurants, and even hotels like to make sure their employees are doing their jobs. One way to do this is to hire people to come in and pretend they are actual customers. These pretend customers are given directions on what to do once are inside the store. This usually entails asking an employee for help or for an item in the store. The mystery shopper then makes mental notes about the employee. Was he/she courteous, did he/she quickly help you, and general notes about the store including how clean the store is, how well lit the store is, how the merchandise looks, and more. After buying a product the get paid to shop person then fills out a form about the employee and store.
Usually the get paid to shop person receives the item they purchase for free and about $5-$15, or they receive a gift certificate worth $5-$25 to the story they just shopped in. How can the ads claim you can make $25-$75, because it only takes you about 15 to 30 minutes to complete your task. So if you could continuously mystery shop for an hour that might add up to $25-$75. But it would be very difficult to find enough stores in your area to make this into a full time income although it is fun for some part time work.
We have reviewed one mystery shopping site: ShopNChek. Look for more site reviews in the coming weeks.