Has anyone purchased this supposedly written by an experienced mystery shopper? I'll find my own links thank you but is there anyone besides the author who has gotten their $25 out of it?

I am in NO WAY am affiliated with the author or publisher or am engaged in the recommendation or non-recommendation of this work.

I'm off to "buy" flooring for two of my "properties." I actually live in an apartment and sold my home a few years back.

And yesterday I dealt with a car dealer who wanted me to sign for a version of the car not even on his lot.

Gosh, this is funn. The extra "n" is for emphasis.

Funny, I have not read above book, I know of two written books on MSing, and believe me, nothing is secret or worth 25.00 to me. Just another way of making a buck off of new shoppers. This can at times be funn, and at times be not so much funn....

I have glanced through a couple of the mystery shopping books on the shelf at the bookstore and moved on without them. What I have found is that forums offer you current information, folks are willing to be freely interactive and overall it is a much more valuable resource than printed material.

I couldn't agree more although some of the links provided in another part of this forum are a bit stale but considering the list is a few years old, that isn't surprising as these companies come and go.

As Jerry Butler once sang (and still does by the saw -saw him 2x in the last 10 yrs) "Only the Strong Survive."

Certainly staleness is a problem of anything in print--whether it is a post on a forum or printed matter. A forum, however, allows you to ask "Does anybody have a current link for Datatron?" You will find out quickly that they closed their doors owing a whole lot of shoppers a whole lot of money.

One of my New Year Resolutions is to read through my 'sticky' posts in the New Mystery Shopper section and edit as may be necessary to update them.

A noble undertaking. Keep up your good work, good intentions, and happy and merry to you and yours, especially to those four footed creatures who often behave much better than those two legged ones! (Present company and forum members excepted)

I have read the book.

It was written by Cathy Stucker. She is an experienced mystery shopper, and she definetly is good at her stuff. When I was an editor, I read quite a few of her reports and that is part of what I base my opinion on.

The Mystery Shop Manual is sort of the basis of the Gold Certification (MSPA) workshop. There is a great deal of duplication and I would see no need for anyone to be exposed to both. I took the Gold Certification class from her, and she is knoweldgable and helpful. That is also part of what I base my opinion on. The book has a STRONG MSP influence (several of the MSPA board members and president at the time were involved in writing the book or giving input/content).

If you are a brand new shopper, or even someone who is thinking about getting into shopping and wants to know more before they take the plunge -I would recommend the book for the information on how shopping works, terminology, etc. As already mentioned - the links and resources can be outdated. I think they are updated once a year and obviously the Internet is often going to be fresher and more current.

If you are a current shopper that wants an MSP perspective that sometimes cannot be found on the forums (as they are shopper-centric) then the book might be worthwhile to you. But the actual information on how to shop is very basic and probably not anything new to you. If you are gold certified - then I would definitely never suggest the book - there would be nothing new I would suspect.