Mystery Shopper Magazine

Company Overview: Untangling the history of this mystery shopping company was a bit of a mystery in itself. Trying to research the company’s background and relationships to other companies became more and more convoluted. It’s a tangled web of associations, with only one clear denominator shared by all entities involved, the year 2009.

This year is evidently a pivotal point in the evolution of this company becoming the entity known as MarketStat.

The founder of another company called Avascend is also the founder of MarketStat. After operating for over 24 years, Avascend was sold to Towne Parke in 2009. Another company, J.C. and Associates, sold its mystery shopping operations in the same year to start a new business. MarketStat took over J.C.’s mystery shopping company in 2009.

The upshot of all this is that although MarketStat has only been in existence for a few years, the company has over two decades of experience in working with multiple industries. MarketStat takes great pride in that experience, and highlights this heavily on their website.

The corporate offices for MarketStat are located in Overland, Kansas. It also has regional offices in Portland, Oregon and Iselin, New Jersey.

This MSC mostly offers assignments involved with airport concessions, franchised restaurants, and hotels.

To sign up with MarketStat, visit their website at http://marketstat.com. Click on “Contact”, then click on “Sign Up As A New Shopper”. This will take you to the new shopper registration on the Shopmetrics software platform. After completion, your login information will be emailed to you almost immediately.

Available assignments are listed on their job board. At one time, MarketStat also posted assignments on the Mystery Shop Forum job board, but they haven’t done so in over a year.

Payments are made via PayPal on the 15^th of the second month following the month in which an assignment is completed. That means if you complete an assignment in January, you will receive payment on March 15^th. So count on a pay cycle of 45 to 75 days, depending upon which day of the month you completed your assignment.

It can be difficult to tell at first glance if the feedback on www.mysteryshopforum is positive or negative. This confusion results from the company’s previous history when operating as J.C. and Associates. Shoppers had many issues in receiving payments in a timely manner and had to contact the company to request resolution.

There were also problems during the transition of the MSC from its identity as J.C. and Associates to its new identity as MarketStat. Some shoppers that had completed assignments for J.C. and Associates were not paid at all for their work prior to this MSC shutting down its operations.

To MarketStat’s credit, they did the right thing in some instances to resolve these situations inherited by their predecessor. However, shoppers still reported that they were required to contact the new company just as they did with the old company to receive overdue payments.

To rectify this, in January of this year MarketStat implemented the new pay schedule as described previously. It is hoped that with the increased pay cycle time that the company can be consistent in paying as promised.

Forum members have stated that although they enjoy accepting assignments from MarketStat, there are very few available. Some believe that this MSC has lost clients.

Shoppers say that the reports for this MSC are easy, the pay is acceptable, and communication with company associates is responsive and positive.

Personal Experience: This MSC has not had any assignments available in my area yet.