Overview: These types of assignments are great for shoppers looking to stockpile gifts for others throughout the year. In addition to actual clothing items, the stores usually have a wide variety of accessories available. Your indirect savings for gifts can be quite sizable when totaled up over a twelve month period.
Project Variations: Assignment scenarios are fairly straightforward. The shopper usually is required to interact with one or more sales associates. Sometimes these are targeted visits, meaning that the shopper must interact with a specific associate. Still yet there are assignments that not only require a purchase, but a return of that item.
Visit & Reporting Requirements: Typical time on-site is about a half hour to forty five minutes, depending upon customer traffic at the time of visit. Reporting can vary from just a few minutes for the easier evaluations to almost an hour for those requiring detailed narrative.
Strategies: Know your clothing size if the assignment requires you to use the dressing room to try on items. If you are voluptuously built, and the store caters to a clientele that exists on carrot sticks and imported water, this is not an assignment for you.
By the same token, if you are of an age that you could be a great-grandparent to most of the clientele, you might want to take a pass on assignments geared for the “skate” or “grunge” crowd. If the typical fresh-faced customer would describe the merchandise as “tight”, they are not talking about the fit.
Yes, Virginia, shoppers have been outted before by making poor decisions in taking on these shops. There’s been more than one instance of the large-but-lovely trying to unsuccessfully squeeze into a micro article of clothing created for the prepubescent. Same thing for shoppers in the AARP demographic donning a skin-baring number festooned with rips and tears and chains and spikes.
More and more assignment instructions have had to include specific guidelines so these unfortunate and unappealing situations do not occur, simply because common sense was not utilized.
Once you have found an assignment that is appropriate for you, begin to browse the store. Note how long it takes for you to be acknowledged and offered assistance. Also observe how the associates handle multiple customers at once.
Typically, the more upscale the location, the more narrative required. In these cases, the client will want to know how the associate determined your needs, illustrated the benefit of one item over another, and/or upsold you to related items.
At some point, an associate should attempt to close the sale. Sometimes this step in the sales process is required in the report write-up, especially if the associate was ineffective in trying to make a sale.
Note your interaction at cash wrap, as many clients want to know if the associate tried to capture information such as your email, and if you were offered a store charge card.
Be sure to get names if required, or descriptions of associates if not.
What Others Have to Say: For shoppers on www.mysteryshopforum.com that are concerned solely with increasing their bottom line, these assignments are usually not in line with that goal. Other forum members have expressed that they enjoy completing these assignments, and state that most of the requirements are not onerous or time-consuming.
Estimated Pay: Many times these are reiumbursement-only assignments. Others pay a small fee in addition to reiumbursement. These shops are frequently bonused.
MSCs: Among the mystery shopping companies that conduct clothing assignments are Best Mark, Corporate Research International, and Market Force.