Mystery shopping is a great "bonus" way to make side cash for abstractors.  I keep hammering the idea of diversification in business to stay in business during hard times.

  Process serving, mobile notary signing agent services, foreclosure research, land inspections, genealogy, filing agent services, and more have been covered by me in blogs and forum posts over the years here. 
 

  I also am redundant about cutting costs to remain competitive.  This is why I bristle at the recent posts asking how to pass copy costs to clients and which portable scanners to buy, when the answer is obvious:  give free copies with a high resolution digital camera that you can buy online at Amazon.com.  I WIILL OUTCOMPETE YOU, by cutting costs like this if I enter your geographic area.  So will anyone who takes such simple and effective advice.  Stay ahead of the curve!

  Mystery shopping is indeed rather slow right now, but will improve once consumer confidence picks up...but this might not be for another 9 month into next Spring.  We'll see.  Keep fingers crossed.