Hello! This is a call to all the rural shoppers out there. I am about an hour's drive from any cities of any size and they are not that large (about 20-30 thousand). Is there anyone else in a similar geographic area, and if so-how do you make it work for you?

Also, periodically in other discussions, I've seen where other shoppers (who also seem to be more experienced) say they don't go out for less than $100. Is there anyone who is doing this regularly? If there is, what is your geographic area like and how many shops does it take to get to this goal?

I really appreciate anyone who wants to give insight on this! The opinions of all shoppers-regardless of experience level is so greatly appreciated and the reason why I come back to this forum again and again!

Happy Shopping!

Myshop - I work mainly in rural areas and don't mind sharing details. The closest town to me is 5 miles and 25,000 people. I take all the local shops I can get, but there are not enough of them. I work out of Weatherford, Texas, and usually book routes that go north toward Nocona, or west toward Abilene, or south toward Meridian and Clifton. I am close to Fort Worth (35 miles) and I do some work on the western half of the loop. I prefer the rural areas.

There are a few days available from time to time at $100 to $150. To get this kind of day, I have to pick up bonused shops and/or run a route on them. Unless I shop in my home town, I drive from 50 to 200 miles for a route. The backbone of my shopping is convenience stores for Corporate Research and Maritz. Everything else is built around them.

If rotation and bonuses hit right, I can get the $100 to $150 days. I don't go out everyday, but I'm on the computer every day, and I'm at least looking for work. I'll take in around $600 on a slow month and around $1000 on a good month. I have made close to $1500 in a month, but I don't care to work that hard.

I've been shopping about two years, and although I've had one $100 shop and a bunch of $50 shops, that's the exception. Most of my shops don't pay a lot. I get a good day by stringing them together. Eight to ten shops is not uncommon. I have done as many as fourteen, but that makes for a long night of reporting. I understand some of the more aggressive shoppers do 20 or so stations in a day, but mine aren't that close together.

Banks, retail, and food also come into the picture. All possibilities are considered. Even a low paying shop can be a money maker if you're driving by anyway. I exhaust every avenue to book a shop that pays for my lunch if I go out of town. Every little bit helps. Sign up with a bunch of companies so that you have a wider choice.

Of course, I could work Fort Worth/Dallas and make more money. I could also make my own clothes, raise a garden, and keep a cow. We all make choices. I hope your rural area works out for you. It might be a lot better than you realize.

I'm fairly new at this, but live 8 miles outside my own "town." I have never had a $100 day yet, but I do try to arrange a number of shops in the same general direction for one day. I wish I had access to someone of the right age to do compliance shops, because I think I could clean up on those around here. It's not unusual to have bonused shops at $30-40 a piece for those towards the end of the month.

I also book merchandizing jobs within my cluster. They don't pay much, but the reports are easy and I'm getting better at getting through the jobs quickly. They also help keep me from getting burnt out on the mystery shops.

A whole lot of it depends on the shops and shoppers in your area. When I got back into shopping well before the recession, there were lots of shops and few shoppers in my area. Even shops that are now coveted often had no takers so were bonused. Those were days of being offered a $20 shop at $80 30 miles 'in the wrong direction' and while 'in the middle of nowhere' being able to pick up a $25 bonus on a fast food lunch and bartering a hardware store at list fee for a 'fun shop' with a $50 purchase reimbursement. Of course the stars don't align like that on a daily basis, but it was not unheard of to have one such day per month.

Today I drove a total of 23.6 miles for $40 worth of fees and $20 of useful reimbursement, but yesterday I drove 72.8 miles for $68 in fees. In the past 30 days I have had one day where I drove about 175 miles for $225 in fees and one day where I drove 154 miles for $150 in fees. But there have also been days of driving 53.8 miles for $50 and 23 miles for $10 in fees and $18.50 in reimbursements. I am near a small city with a number of towns of various sizes within 40 miles around it.

In my area I find it incredibly difficult to do routes any more because I am unwilling to commit to a $10 shop 40 miles away unless I have enough other shops along the way to make the trip worthwhile. When I find a shop (or shops) that could make the $10 shop worthwhile, it has been taken. So generally when I have a high dollar day it is on behalf of one client/company and doing multiple performances of the same shop at different locations.

It is incredibly helpful when you're familiar with MSP boards and have a sense of their shops/locations/times of month. I have scheduled 11 shops for December. On their own, they're not impressive. But, I am relatively certain of their timing and when my other MSPs release their shops, which will be much, much closer to December 1st, I'll start fleshing out my routes.

My life and schedule do not have the time to drive 100 miles a day for shops. Rarely, I will drive 60-80 mile days. Those are for bonused shops, most of which have reached me via personal contact from schedulers. However, I am not in a rural area. I'm in a bedroom community near a few larger cities. Even close to cities, $100 days are not typical for me.

That is how it works for me, but that being said, how far would I be willing to drive for $100/day in shops? 100 miles is two hours. That's a chunk of time. It would depend on how many shops it would take to earn $100. I'd take a laptop, and enter shops as I could, so I wouldn't come home after a long day only to have to work all night. It's tiring just thinking about it)

Well, Mert, you're right about it being tiring. I have a laptop I bought recently but I don't use it to enter shops on the road. My goal is to get through the route by the end of time allowed and get back home. I have to use time away from the house to drive and do assignments. Some of the image audits have to be done by 4:00 p.m., some by 5:00 p.m., and some by 7:00 p.m. Doing reports during the day would cut into driving and shopping time, and mean I would do fewer shops which means less money.

I need to be in a working office (not my car or a McD's) to transfer and work the pictures for upload, get the reports done, and handle all my papers in an orderly manner. Time doing the reports at home is a lot more relaxed than it would be out on the road. Everyone has a different approach to getting it done. Reporting at home works better for me.

What great info! Thanks to all of you so far for your input!

The ultimate rural route shopper is my friend Servanne, who gives a session on highly profitable route shopping, mostly in rural areas, at each IMSC conference. She was harrassed off of this forum by someone who is now banned from the forum for such behavior. Therefore, if you want to read about how she makes a serious income from rural routes, you will have to do a search for her posts on the volition forum. I doubt that she leaves home for as little as $100 in a day and she often has two youngsters in tow!

I'm in the same position as Mert: I live in a bedroom community between two metro areas. To the north (30 miles) and south (50 miles) are the two relatively well populated areas, connected by an uninterrupted interstate. I can be in either city in well under 40 minutes, and it's a drive you can make half asleep. Both have adequate supplies of your "typical" shops.

To the east and west are a bunch of small, not well connected towns and rural areas. This is where I'll score my big bonus shops. I'll set up routes based on these rural bonuses, depending on whether they're generally north or generally south of me.

For instance, one Saturday I picked up a $30 bank shop and a $40 fast food shop in the same small town, slightly northeast of me. After those, I continued north through the country, picking off several gas stations on the fringe of the northern metro area as I made my way back to the interstate for a quick cruise home to upload. Came to around $140 plus reimbursements, total of around 75 miles driven, with gas costs amortized by required fuel purchases.

^ That is impressive. It is about $2/mile income. My cutoff is $1/mile and I am all peachy if I hit $1.50/mile.

To everyone putting together a route, whether it be a rural or a city route: Watch the "shop fee + meaningful reimbursement" per mile amount. Look at the per mile amounts from the posts above, and then look at anakin's post right above mine here. Anakin's post is totally on point with regard to the amounts. $1/mile is marginal, $1.50/mile is great, and anything above that is killer. If you haven't ever kept track of your income per mile, start doing so. It goes without saying that if you can work it so you can do some shops during a trip that you must take anyway, then you are generating income without driving additional miles. After doing fieldwork for 15 years, I truly believe that the difference between the successful and the unsuccessful fieldworker is that extra $10/day that you can squeeze out of a route. $10/day works out to over $3K/year. That's real money! If you live anywhere near a decent sized town or 2, you CAN make $100/day, every day, all year long. I did fieldwork full time for 4 years after being forced out of my normal full time job, and I would still be doing fieldwork full time had I not had an opportunity to snag an amazing full time gig. Mystery shopping, merchandising, product recalls/retrievals, facility audits, focus groups, anything that requires an independent fieldworker.....keep your eyes peeled and follow up on any opportunity that you see. Negotiate wisely on fees versus the time/miles required for the job. Market yourself well. You can bring in meaningful income. Go for it!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/17/2011 09:32PM by vanicek.

I am in New Jersey. If you think New Jersey is one town after another and everything is close, you are missing the part I like. The part with trees and farms,

I did 105 miles on an ETR (Enjoy the ride) tour of western Jersey, Clinton, Flemington, Frenchtown. I passed Bison farms. I did not know they raise Bison in NJ (Bison look like buffalo with a beard)

Anway, that part of Jersey has banks for the very wealth people who live out there who do not do Mystery Shops, Those banks are always left over and bonused. If you get enough of them banks and convenience stores the average mileage is about 10 miles per shop. The MSP threw in Money for the terrorists who run the gas stations and suck us dry. I made a profit,

I did enjoy the ride, I got to eat in mom and pop places instead of franchised fast food. The "romance of the road" is still out there, so is the deer. You must watch out for the deer. I almost hit a few, They travel in packs. If you see one you will see more.

Unless I am going to a destination like a mall or the beach and I pick up a shop on the way or the MSP pays for gas, I am not taking money out of my fees as the fees are shrinking and the gas prices are going up.

I'd love to get $1.50 to $2.00 a mile every time I go out. That would be great, but it doesn't happen often on my map. I go for what I can get. For $100 or more, I do whatever it takes to handle it.

I'm sorry to hear that Servanne got harrassed off the forum. I read some of her posts elsewhere and didn't realize that happened to her here. She seems like a nice person.

i would love to make that much

If you want to work hard and do a good job it's possible.

I'm having trouble finding shops that will even pay for my gas at 14mpg and gas at over $3.00/pg. Right now I am building some experience. I have only been shopping for four weeks and the reports are killing me. If I do five shops in one day I am up until 1:30 am doing the reports. Do you get faster at the as you get more experience?

Yes. When starting most of us probably had the same issues as you. Experience will help you learn what works best. For me middle of the night reporting is not it so if I have a long day scheduled most if not all jobs will have reports I can work on the next morning. I've had days with 12 and 15 shops! Most jobs are new for you right now. I now make sure to mix it up. If it's a new job with an unfamiliar report then the rest of my day will be filled with easy, comfortable jobs.

vanicek Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> To everyone putting together a route, whether it
> be a rural or a city route: Watch the "shop fee +
> meaningful reimbursement" per mile amount. Look
> at the per mile amounts from the posts above, and
> then look at anakin's post right above mine here.
> Anakin's post is totally on point with regard to
> the amounts. $1/mile is marginal, $1.50/mile is
> great, and anything above that is killer. If you
> haven't ever kept track of your income per mile,
> start doing so. It goes without saying that if
> you can work it so you can do some shops during a
> trip that you must take anyway, then you are
> generating income without driving additional
> miles. After doing fieldwork for 15 years, I
> truly believe that the difference between the
> successful and the unsuccessful fieldworker is
> that extra $10/day that you can squeeze out of a
> route. $10/day works out to over $3K/year.
> That's real money! If you live anywhere near a
> decent sized town or 2, you CAN make $100/day,
> every day, all year long. I did fieldwork full
> time for 4 years after being forced out of my
> normal full time job, and I would still be doing
> fieldwork full time had I not had an opportunity
> to snag an amazing full time gig. Mystery
> shopping, merchandising, product
> recalls/retrievals, facility audits, focus groups,
> anything that requires an independent
> fieldworker.....keep your eyes peeled and follow
> up on any opportunity that you see. Negotiate
> wisely on fees versus the time/miles required for
> the job. Market yourself well. You can bring in
> meaningful income. Go for it!

I actually look at it a bit differently. I don't like calculating dollars per mile, since I'm not being paid to drive, I'm being paid to shop. I look at it more as a project or job cost basis.

I have a spreadsheet template that I can calculate route profitability on relatively easily. For each leg of the trip, I can adjust for the mileage that I drive, the expected MPG that I would get for that area, the current price of gas, any reimbursed fuel purchases and the payment for that leg. Being able to do this lets me calculate out true travel costs and profitability for the route, and lets me gauge whether that amount of profit is worth the time invested.

Plus, if I have a route planned, and another shop comes up that is in the vicinity, but not nearby, I can easily insert another line to see how adding that job affects the route's profit, and if it is worthwhile to add.

I wish this forum would allow attachments. I'd be glad to share it with anyone who is interested.

Google Docs, link to it. I'm just starting but as with all things I do I have to turn it into a spreadsheet with 50 variables, then start producing some graphs that will show the key metrics I'd like to watch over. I haven't gotten to the graphs yet.

raisitup Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Google Docs, link to it. I'm just starting but as
> with all things I do I have to turn it into a
> spreadsheet with 50 variables, then start
> producing some graphs that will show the key
> metrics I'd like to watch over. I haven't gotten
> to the graphs yet.


Good to know there's another Excel junkie on the forum.

I'm still tweaking my "master shopping" spreadsheet, which will self calculate mileage costs per job and a running total of tax liabilities. It's also fun to run pivots off of it, to calculate stuff like average pay per job per company.

I'll post the link when I get it uploaded!

I do something similar to Zlinedavid, but unsophisticated. My little car gets around 40mpg stretched out on the road, so I figure ten cents a mile fuel. Then I throw in $50.00 a month for added wear on the car. I drive about 1,000 miles a month shopping/auditing so that's another five cents, and now I'm up to fifteen cents a mile.

There's one more thing I consider about route shopping, mileage, and car costs. Everybody has car costs involved in their work. On the last full time job I had, my daily driving ranged from 70 miles to 105 miles depending on assignment, and I didn't get anything for making that drive. So, when I leave the house for a full day's work shopping/auditing, I bear in mind that I used to drive 70 to 105 miles for free and the mileage doesn't seem so excessive. I don't consider the cost of driving when I look at the day. I consider how much money I can get, and whether I want to make the drive.

I have my calculator available on Google Docs. PM me for the link.

All these methods are interesting. I tried the $ per mile and didn't find it working as well for me. I figure it out by the hour and include my drive time. They might not be paying me to drive, but my time is money. For routes in town I never include the time from home to my first stop and from the last stop back since it could be anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. For out of town trips I deduct the first and last 30 minutes since that would be an average drive for me to get to an area in St. Louis where I would be making a decent income. When researching a route or trip I do use Excel, but I'm not as advanced as our shopping geeks It's just total dollars minus expenses divided by total hours.

I also have a quick reference spread sheet which lists my average expenses (gas, food, hotel) and target daily commission. At a glance I can see if a multi-day trip is going to pay enough.

LisaSTL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All these methods are interesting. I tried the $
> per mile and didn't find it working as well for
> me. I figure it out by the hour and include my
> drive time. They might not be paying me to drive,
> but my time is money. For routes in town I never
> include the time from home to my first stop and
> from the last stop back since it could be anywhere
> from 15 to 30 minutes. For out of town trips I
> deduct the first and last 30 minutes since that
> would be an average drive for me to get to an area
> in St. Louis where I would be making a decent
> income. When researching a route or trip I do use
> Excel, but I'm not as advanced as our shopping
> geeks It's just total dollars minus expenses
> divided by total hours.
>
> I also have a quick reference spread sheet which
> lists my average expenses (gas, food, hotel) and
> target daily commission. At a glance I can see if
> a multi-day trip is going to pay enough.


That's exactly why I don't go for the dollars per mile calculation: not all miles are the same. There is a certain bridge in my area that is notorious for traffic, especially during rush hours. If I take a shop that involves crossing there, I could easily have 20 minutes tied up in 1.5 miles. And, needless to say, my cost per mile for that 1.5 miles is exponentially higher, due to all the sitting and idling (especially if I'm in the SUV that day...ugh).

I live in about as rural an area as you can get - the next closest town of any size is 800 kilometers away - an 8 hour drive one way. The town I live in has only 15 thousand people and we get very few shops. The upside is that I am the only shopper in town, so I wait until the deadlines and get the phone calls offering bonuses on the few that are available. Just shopping in town I make around $300 per month on average. When I travel for pleasure is when I hit the boards and shop my entire route when possible. Then I can generally make $600 to $1000 per month, but there is no way I could make a living off mystery shopping up here, but even so the extra $300 to $500 per month on average really helps with the bills.

cpstandre Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm having trouble finding shops that will even
> pay for my gas at 14mpg and gas at over $3.00/pg.
> Right now I am building some experience. I have
> only been shopping for four weeks and the reports
> are killing me. If I do five shops in one day I am
> up until 1:30 am doing the reports. Do you get
> faster at the as you get more experience?


Me too and I've been shopping for 6+ years. Five shops is still a lot for me too.
Most of my towns are 5k or less and some companies pay a very good bonus but when you factor in the gas and time it's still not much. My reports take forever. I don't type and I'm very picky about my narratives.
My biggest problem though are the pictures. How do you organize all those gas station pictures?
One company uses Explorer exclusively and Mac doesn't play well with it. I
recently lost over $100 in one day because of it. ugh

When I have multiple gas stations I choose something particular to be the last photo for each, such as the receipt. That way I can organize them into folders just by looking at the thumbnails. I also use Picture Manager for all the labeling, rotating and resizing. I can enter a job id and any other descriptor and the program will automatically number the photos. Then the whole batch can be resized at once. It takes 5 minutes or less per station and then the reports take about 10.

I live in a metro area where there are plenty of shops around. But I have recently started to make one or two trips a month into the rural areas and found it really worth my while. As others said, with experience comes the knowledge who has what when, and I can actually go to a few MS companies and fill in a route that started with one or two bonused shops. I have done three trips like that so far and made between $250 and $300 each -- but I did drive 200 miles to do it and took 10-12 shops for the day. Actually yesterday I did 11 shops in town -- $225! I think that is actually a record!

Wow, nice! I'm still getting my feet wet but I plan on having days like that.

Today I made $46 and drove 21 miles. Tomorrow, I'll make $125 and drive 50-60 miles. I don't look at it per mile or per hour. I take shops that make sense to my route, pay fair for the amount of work involved, and offer useful reimbursement.

Rural shoppers face a challenge, as do shoppers living in areas with little shopping opportunity.