Who Hires Mystery Shoppers And Why?

Mystery shoppers are independent contractors hired by companies who specialize in mystery shopping. 

Marketing companies use mystery shoppers to gather information about a product or store.  Sometimes the marketer is working for the retail company itself.  Other times they are working for a vendor or competitor trying to gain useful information.  

So what kind of companies get shopped by mystery shoppers.  All kinds of retail and service industry stores get shopped.  Here is an example of some of the stores that get shopped.

• Walmart get mystery shopped by price checkers almost every day.  So that Target and other retails can match their low prices.
• Movie Theaters get mystery shopped to make sure they are not letting under age kids in to rated "R" movies.  
• Convenience stores get mystery shopped to check to see if they check " ID's ".
• Home Depot gets shopped by paint vendors to see if the sales people are selling their product.
• Banks use mystery shopping to check the on how effective their sales people are.
• Video game suppliers want to make sure that stores aren't selling games before the release date.
• Fast food , restaurants and most all big retailers do spot check  evaluations by mystery shoppers on their employees all the time.
• Car Dealerships get mystery shopped for JD Powers, and other ratings companies. 
• Best Buy uses shoppers to do regular non secret audits of their stores. 
• Comic book publishers use mystery shoppers to see if the store is real or is a collector trying to by wholesale from them.

Mystery shoppers are hired by anyone who needs eyes and ears to check of something anywhere around the world.  For this reason there is always a need for new mystery shoppers.