Retail mystery shopping
A real shopper walks into your store, asks the questions your customers ask and reports what happened: who greeted them, what they were told, how long they queued and how the checkout went. Scored against the standard you set, with photos of what they saw.
What a shopper checks.
Each check is a question on your questionnaire, and you decide how much it counts towards the score.
- ✓The greeting: whether someone acknowledged the shopper, and how soon.
- ✓Product knowledge: the answer to a question you set, and what the staff recommended.
- ✓The floor: shelves, displays, pricing and promotions, with photos where you ask for them.
- ✓The queue: how long the shopper waited to pay, against your target.
- ✓The checkout: what was offered at the register, and how the shopper was thanked.
An example brief.
Ask a team member to help you choose a gift. Note how they found out what you needed and what they recommended. Photograph the front display, then buy one small item and time how long you queue.
Every brief is yours to write: what to do, what to ask, what to watch and what to photograph.
What the report shows.
Every visit is checked before it reaches you. Most reports land the day after the visit.
- ✓A score for the visit and for each section, weighted the way you set them.
- ✓Yes or no answers for the standards every store must meet, with a pass rate for each question across your stores.
- ✓Photos of displays and shelves, under the questions that asked for them.
- ✓Store against store, and by region or format when your stores carry tags.
Questions about retail visits.
Can you check every store in a region?
Yes. Tag your stores by region, format or manager, post a job to the stores carrying a tag, and read the scores for that tag on its own.
Can I use the checklist my area managers already use?
Yes. Bring it across from Excel, CSV, PDF or Word and it becomes the first draft of your questionnaire, ready to edit.
Will my team know it is a mystery shopper?
They shouldn't. Shoppers visit as ordinary customers and must not say they are mystery shoppers while in the store. Each job can also stop the same shopper coming back too often.
How quickly do results come back?
Most reports land the day after the visit, checked before they reach you. Each one can be downloaded as a PDF with your logo and brand colour.