Hello - I am brand new to secret shopping and would love some tips and feedback from seasoned secret shoppers. I recently completed my first shop which is still under review.  Can anyone share their experiences on reduced payments?

I have never heard of reduced payments. What does that refer to?

Secret shopping is black and white, you either meet the requirements or not. I have never seen in 20 years a reduced payment result.

Tips: Tell the story and be as objective as possible, stick to facts and stay away from opinions. Never take notes in public, use your cell phone or go the the washroom if you ever need to write something. The script they provide is a guide of all the criterias required, be genuine and do not act like a scripted robot.

Sometimes shops do require a long report and many questions but only pays 5$, when accepting a shop make sure to assess if it is really worth it. The least appealing ones are sometimes phone shops.

Never post secret shop pictures on Google review or any review site. You can not be a secret shopper AND a food critic.

It is normal to miss a picture or forget something and when you figure it out you need to go back and get it, never use a Google picture or anything from the internet.

The schedulers are your friends, treat them well, you work with them and not against them.

We are all in this to succeed and the first 3/6 months will be hell but don't give up. You will quickly pick up some tricks and shops will be done faster and faster.

Hi Sylvia,

There are only a couple of cases in which the shop payment is reduced, which I have encountered so far.

In one case, the shop consists of two visits to a location - the shopper is supposed to purchase a specific item on the first visit, and then return the item on a different day for a refund. However, it sometimes happens that the item is not available - in that case, there is no second visit, so the shop payment is reduced accordingly.

In another case, if the shop has a payment and a reimbursement, and the report requires a photo of the receipt to be provided (among other photos), and the shopper does not provide it, does not respond to the editor's requests to provide it, etc. - but the MSP still wants to accept the shop, I've seen them approve it with the payment only, and no reimbursement, since they have no way of confirming what the actual expense was.

Lastly, there may be shops (although I haven't encountered them myself) in which the guidelines have very specific requirements, with, for example, some portions of the shop that can be optionally skipped, where it's called out that if some of those portions are not completed, the total payment would be reduced. Again, I haven't seen shops like that, but it's not unimaginable.

Hello! I’m supposed to be staring my first shop soon and I called the MSP for hello and guidance as this is my first time but no answer . Any suggestions?