Believe it or not, but the stay-at-home job market is ever-expanding. If that weren’t true, we probably wouldn’t be here to inform our readers about a little thing called mystery shopping, would we?
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In all honesty, the term ‘mystery shopping’ itself sounds very, well, mysterious. Actually, it’s a very simple job basically anyone can do while performing everyday tasks.
The simplest possible definition of mystery shopping would be: “shop and observe.” In truth, it’s a job where you’re supposed to monitor quality and service as an anonymous resource.
For the most part, this job is done in person. You walk into a grocery store, restaurant, gas station, or any other facility that offers products or services, and observe and measure certain things.
For example, you’ll be asked to measure the time someone took to serve you or to respond to your request.
There is another part of mystery shopping that’s not so spy-like. If you opt for merchandising, your job is to help companies present their products in a retail environment in order to generate sales.
The current leader in the field is Market Force Information, which lets you do some mystery shopping and then report to them via an online survey by answering questions like “Were you greeted properly?” and “Were the products priced and well stocked?”
All-in-all, mystery shopping is still in its early stages. But with so many manufacturers and retailers interested in the customers’ opinion, we’re expecting this job market to grow exponentially in the next couple of years.