What Is a Mystery Shopper?

If you’ve worked in the retail industry long enough, you’ll eventually hear about mystery shoppers. Hundreds of the nation’s leading retailers use them to conduct quality assurance (QA) tests. However, even some of the smaller retailers are now taking advantage of mystery shoppers. Unfortunately, there’s still a lot of misinformation floating around out there regarding mystery shoppers are how they work. This bad information has led to confusion among certain retailers. In an effort to separate the facts from the fiction, we’re going to talk about mystery shoppers and their purpose in the retail industry.

Mystery Shoppers: The Basics

A mystery shopper is exactly what the name suggests: a person working on behalf of a market research company or internal division of the company whom pretends to shop as a normal customer with the purpose of gaining information about the store’s products and/or services. Employees working at the store are typically unaware of the mystery shopper’s presence. They assume the shopper is just another ordinary customer browsing through the store.

Benefits of Using Mystery Shoppers In The Retail Industry:

• Identify problem areas related to customer service
• Identify employees whom perform poorly at work
• Ensure the store is clean, organized and follows all of the proper safety guidelines
• See how employees interact with customers. Are they greeting customers who enter the store?

The entire purpose of a mystery shopper is to be a fly on the wall while the business performs their normal operations. When the owner or executive of a national retailer shows up the store, employees will instantly know who they are, and as such they will be on their best behavior. But when a mystery shopper shows up to the store, they will continue to operate normally without knowing that someone in the store is watching their every move.

History of Mystery Shoppers

Some people assume that mystery shoppers are a relatively new phenomenon which has appeared in the past few years; however, this isn’t the case. According to reports, retailers began to use mystery shoppers to gauge the performance of their employees dating all the way back to the 1940s. Over the years, mystery shoppers became commonplace in retail stores, health clubs, motels, movie theaters, restaurants, hospitals and more.

Hopefully, this will give you a better understanding of mystery shoppers and their purpose in the retail industry.