As a brand new shopper you often wonder how many shops you can start off with. When you are first starting, take it slow. Accept one shop, complete it and see how you feel about the time constraints. With apartment shops, as you gain more experience you can sign up for more shops at one time.
You might sign up for a shop and it takes you a week to get your target on the phone. During that time, you could have completed another shop. The thing is, you never know how long it may take you to reach a target.
If you are mystery shopping in addition to a full-time job, you need to be careful in pacing yourself with shop sign ups. When you commit to complete a shop, the company is counting on you to come through and complete it in a timely manner. If you sign up for four shops, sometimes contacting the target agents do not work out to fit with your regular full-time job. This can cause you to falter on completing the shops you signed up for in a timely manner. With a full-time job it is often a good idea to take apartment shops one or two at a time.
Remember to be careful if you are working for multiple mystery shopping companies too. Start slowly to learn the time constraints with various types of shops and make sure you have the time to complete everything you have committed to completing. One apartment shop and a lunch shop in a day seems quite doable. But having a breakfast shop, lunch shop, and dinner shop all with specified time constraints and an apartment shop with a specific target agent may lead to being overwhelmed and cause you to rush through assignments, missing important details.
If you are mystery shopping full-time, you have more flexibility. However, be very careful not to overbook yourself. If you continually drop shops, it has an impact on your ability to receive shops later. You will not be seen as dependable, and it can cost you income.