My Mystery Shopping Paying Off!

I had the most amusing Mystery Shopping trip yesterday. I got an "emergency" email from one of the companies I shop for saying that they needed a mystery shop done that day. Normally they pay $10 with a $1 reimbursement for this particular store, but because of the immediate need, they would pay an extra $5 if I could complete it that day. The last few weeks I've spent the majority of my lunch hour walking, but it was pretty rainy yesterday so I said I would be happy to run over and do the shop then.

The store to be shopped was a local pharmacy* that I have used in the past. The job was to observe the pharmacy, talk to a pharmacist and either make a small purchase or refill a prescription. It just so happened that this store has been running a special on transferring prescriptions, and I had a prescription that needed to be filled...

The special was a coupon that gave you a $10 gift card if you transferred a prescription. So, I did the shop, transferred and filled the prescription and gave them my coupon. In turn, they gave me a coupon for $2.50 off of their store brand items, another $10 transfer coupon for another prescription, and my gift card! This meant that for a half hour mystery shopping trip and another half hour typing up the report, I got the following:

- $15.00 pay for the mystery shopping trip

- $1.00 reimbursement for my purchase

- $10.00 gift card

- A coupon for $2.50

- Another $10.00 gift card offer

Since I plan on using both of the coupons - this means I will get $38.50 for one trip! Normally I think mystery shopping is more of a way to have fun and try new things than a way to make money, but this was certainly a fabulous trip!




* I can't tell you more than that because of mystery shopping privacy rules, in fact, I have deliberately obfuscated some of the details to keep the mystery!

Photo by: Joanna Young