Mystery Shopping in Market Research - A Beginners Guide

You must have heard of sting operations, where deep investigation is conducted using deceptive techniques to obtain information that is not accessible by people.

In this segment, you will learn how to perform this “sting operation” on your competition.

As you saw in the video, mystery shopping involves auditors acting as customers to gather information on your competitors.

Mystery shoppers often look at:

1. Quality and cost (e.g., product offering),

2. The target market (e.g., who shops there, who do their marketing messages appeal to, etc.),

3. Floor layout and design (e.g., can also be a website design for online-only companies),

4. Customer engagement (e.g., cashiers, social media messaging),

5. Brand perception (e.g., how the general public views or describes a brand), and

6. Processes and procedures (e.g., return policy, interaction in customer service).

With this, we have come to the end of the fourth session. The next segment will summarize all your learnings.