Becoming A Secret Shopper

Participating in market research is similar to being a secret shopper. In its simplest sense, you get paid to evaluate something (usually a television commercial) and give your opinion. These jobs are fun, and the pay is GREAT! The downside is that the frequency of jobs from any one particular company is low, and these companies are hard to come by. Unfortunately, there are no ‘market research networks’ like there are for secret shopper companies. Luckily, I’m going to give you a company which you can sign up with absolutely free. It’s called Open Minds. I’ve been on the Open Minds consumer panel for a few years now. Here is a little from my experience:

They call me once or twice a year to participate in a ‘survey’. They ask you a few questions over the phone to see if you qualify to participate (I’ve only ever not been eligible to participate once). If you qualify and agree to partake, you will have to visit their office at the set day & time (they have lots of time slots available for your convenience). If you agree to participate, you MUST attend, and be on time, or they will probably never call you back for another opportunity.

Once at their office, they will assign you to a computer, where you will have to watch about 3 commercials, and then answer a set of questions usually related to only one of the commercials. You give your input as to what you liked or disliked about the ads, what parts were interesting or boring, what you remember most, and such. They say it takes about an hour to complete, but in my experience I have always finished within 30 minutes. They pay about $40 - $50 right away upon completion! Every once in a while, you might be invited to participate in a focus group which pays considerably more than the individual surveys. I have only ever been invited to a focus group once, it payed $80 for one hour.

I know that this type of work is more along the lines of “paid surveys” than “secret shopping”, but it’s a lot more fun than the typical paid online surveys that have become increasingly popular on the internet.  If you are interested in learning more about paid online surveys, check out this very popular paid online surveys site.  

To join the consumer panel at Open Minds, simply visit
http://e-callroom.com/respondents/index.cfm and click on “sign up”.

If you know of any other similar market research groups, please share them here.