The Mystery Shopper’s Manual

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Looking for a way to expand your opportunities and make more money? Go beyond mystery shopping and try doing merchandising or demos. Merchandising involves working with the presentation of products to display them in ways that make them attractive to buyers, and make it easy for them to locate the products. Demos are one-on-one presentations of merchandise to customers.

You have undoubtedly seen people doing demos. This might be the person showing a product at a sporting event or street fair, or handing out food samples and coupons at the grocery store.

Merchandisers are responsible for making sure products are displayed properly and attractively in stores. For example, a merchandiser might set up a display, order and put out additional stock, or replace merchandise due to seasonal or other changes.

Unlike mystery shopping, when you do demos or merchandising you will make yourself known to store personnel. Payment may be by the hour, instead of by the job. And while mystery shoppers may not be able to return to the same location again and again, merchandisers may have accounts and locations they handle regularly. When you are assigned to one of these accounts, the work can be much more predictable and steady than mystery shopping.

Some of the companies that schedule mystery shopping jobs also have merchandising and demos available. The best way to find opportunities in these fields is to visit the NARMS web site at http://www.NARMS.com/. Click on Services for Individuals, and you can search the job bank, submit your profile, and access training materials to help you prepare for demos and merchandising.

NARMS offers training materials anyone can access, and an optional Proficiency Test (fee). Although the Proficiency Test is not required, NARMS states that it may help merchandisers to get more assignments.

Merchandising and demos can be a great way to supplement your mystery shopping income, and provide more stability in your earnings, too.