Friday, April 15, 2011

Mystery Shopping Practices for Effective Brand Analysis

Mystery shopping can prove to be an exciting job to all those who love to spend hours shopping. It is, in fact, an effective market research tool that companies employ to learn about their business practices. For this purpose, market research companies or mystery shopping firms are hired so as to design and implement mystery shopping practices.

Many people have reportedly taken up mystery shopping as a full time profession. Mystery shoppers get the opportunity to shop in various posh outlets, watch movies, dine at restaurants, visit amusement parks, go for car servicing, eye checkups and so on – all these for free!

Stay-at-home moms, students and anyone who wouldn't mine getting paid to go shopping at various stores and evaluating the stuff can easily qualify for mystery shopping assignments. There are no criteria like high educational qualification and prior experience in the field – all individuals are provided with proper training before they set out on their maiden mystery shopping tasks.

To get started with mystery shopping, one needs to first gather adequate and appropriate information on this industry. There are several online sites that provide all the necessary information needed to get started. Most of the mystery shopping sites or companies are found online in easily accessible databases. The databases generally include lists of companies, the tasks to be completed and how much they pay to their mystery shoppers.

There are certain downfalls of mystery shopping that make many people quite apprehensive of taking this job. Most companies want people to give their social security numbers while filling the online registration form. This can make anyone very hesitant. Since the mystery shoppers are not bounded by any contracts or any strict timeframes for task completion, majority of shoppers prefer working during their own convenient hours. Yet, a lot of mystery shopping assignments need to be done at a certain time. As a result, many mystery shoppers turn down such assignments. Many shoppers like to work independently. This, in turn leads to the decrease in pay or offers to shop. Companies generally send high paid assignments to dedicated mystery shoppers. Hence, it is advisable to accept each mystery shopping assignment irrespective of their payment amounts.

The cash amounts earned from mystery shopping assignments vary from company to company. This payment factor greatly depends on the mystery shopper’s performance and on the market standards of the client company. Also, like any other online job, this job does not bind the mystery shoppers with any contracts and hence they are free to take up other part time jobs or sign up with multiple mystery shopping companies to earn more.

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