Pet Store - How to Remain a Mystery?

I've seen posted several times an audit for a pet store, where you have to mark off every sale item in the store. The estimated time to complete the shop is 4 hours. The pay is OK, which is why I'm considering it. Not a huge amount, but more than I would make NOT taking the shop!

The details of the shop say you must remain anonymous, and not reveal yourself as a shopper. Has anyone done this? How did you do that? I can see, maybe, in a very busy store, you could get by with going in for a couple hours at a time, and doing the shop over the course of a couple days, or at different times in the same day. But I don't see how you can walk around with the checklist for four hours, poring over the items, and not get identified.

I've thought I could go in and take pics of every shelf in every aisle, and zoom in on the photos when I got home to check off the items - but that still seems risky. The location this shop is in, is in a more rundown shopping center and they don't get nearly as much business as they used to.

I know I'd stand out like a sore thumb - or an obvious "mystery" shopper.

Any ideas?

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More About Veterinarian and Pet Mystery Shopping

I know which shop you are talking about. They do this shop in a specailty shop near me. None of the pet foods in the store are on their list except for one. You literally have to pull the 40 lb bags of food down to get the upc codes.

I did this one twice and never more. I told the person in the pet store I didn't want my dog to have a certain ingredient in her food and they left me alone. But I had to manually write down every flavor variety for every brand by size and get the UPC code. Then you had to do it for cat food.

The snacks are near the front so that makes it nearly impossible to hide what you are doing.

Top it off you have to mail in the entire store ad as proof. Low and behold when you are at home you realize you've missed a snack or brand on the front page of the ad because it was end capped or moved to a different location. So now you have to guess or call the store to see what sizes and varieties they carry.

Then you have to type in all the UPC codes on your report. I invariably can't read half of them since I am trying to scribble in secrecy in the two aisle store. I usually end up googling the food to try to locate and double check the UPC. What a hassel.

Never again.

~~*~~*~~*~~ kal ~~*~~*~~*~~
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just forget to load the film.

And warning if you do this..... pay is at least 60 to 90 or more days out. But the worse part is they hire more than one of you and compare notes to the same store.
Less prices loses!

I questioned the scheduler about completing this since they advertise it as one job. She said most shoppers do half one day and the rest another. That divides the fee in half now doesn't it.

This MSC seems to be notorious for that. I accepted an insurance job from them at what I thought was a decent fee. Then I find out I have to evaluate 2 agents at different companies and it's up to me to find the second one. The irony of the insurance job, I was part of a pilot project for Market Force and this client. I was just given the companies to shop and was able to choose the individual agents. All were within 5 minutes of my house and meetings took about 30 minutes. The pay per agent was more than what this company pays for two.

Equal rights for others does not mean fewer rights for you. It's not pie.
"I prefer someone who burns the flag and then wraps themselves up in the Constitution over someone who burns the Constitution and then wraps themselves up in the flag." -Molly Ivins
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It's a waste of your time and it really annoys the pig.

Since they don't want you to reveal yourself as a mystery shopper why not just reveal yourself as something else. Such as explain to the manager that you are writing a blog about the rise of pet food prices and would like to do some research or maybe you are a reporter writing about harmful additives that are in some pet foods. Just try to come up with a story that would explain why someone would be taking notes in their store for 4 hours.

Triple Platinum Certified - Shopping South Central Kansas

Oh! Such a simple solution (if I choose to do that)- thanks!!

That is, if that would fly with the store. They might think competitors were gathering data. I work for an agency whose main service is providing a database; we get emails all the time from people trying to get access to our listings of information. Of course, it's for college research, etc... (not!)

Brak Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Since they don't want you to reveal yourself as a
> mystery shopper why not just reveal yourself as
> something else. Such as explain to the manager
> that you are writing a blog about the rise of pet
> food prices and would like to do some research or
> maybe you are a reporter writing about harmful
> additives that are in some pet foods. Just try to
> come up with a story that would explain why
> someone would be taking notes in their store for 4
> hours.

If they think that they are probably right! I can't figure out what else it could be for

LisaSTL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If they think that they are probably right! I
> can't figure out what else it could be for

Right! Or why you can't reveal you're a shopper!

Sounds like an audit not a mystery shop, also sounds like it should be a revealed audit except of course if it's a competitor doing the audit. If it is a competitor audit and you are discovered you may get thrown out on your ear.

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Pet Store - How to Remain a Mystery?

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