I see that one of my MSCs is offering a few "circuits" at the local airport. The pay is pretty good from a density perspective obviously but can anyone share their experience with a shop like this? Seems pretty daunting to do 12 shops in the same shot. Supposedly each requires only a "brief" interaction, but I'm curious how brief they are, what the turnaround time generally is, etc. TIA!

I mostly do shops between connecting flights, making sure that I will have a long enough layover even if my plane is late arriving. I have done one circuit through an airport and the shops themselves were pretty fast. It is anticipated in an airport environment that a traveller will be in a hurry, so service is pretty fast whether you are buying a newspaper or a sit down lunch. The shops I have done generally require quick observations of a limited number of things and you are going directly to the cashier, not waiting for someone to assist you. Plus you have no restrooms to check, no sales pitches to listen through, etc. You do need a good notes system so that you review the needed observations right before you 'go in' and a DVR is great to 'talk' your time in/time out, name, description etc. as you head to your next location. I found retrieving my notes to make sure I had covered everything on my recording before I shut it off was helpful. One of the issues with airport shops is that they don't have 'street addresses' and there may be many locations within the same airport with the same name. My receipts showed concourse and space number on the concourse for the most part, but you need to be really confident you are shopping the right place.

In order to get behind security, some shoppers purchase a fully refundable ticket and as they finish their shops they stop by the ticket counter to turn it in for a refund.

Well I bit the bullet and requested it, I'll be fine whether I get it or not. Since this is local I won't have to worry about making a flight so whenever the "first time" for me is I'll be relaxed as far as that goes. There are shop circuits both pre- and post-security, supposedly the MSC gets you into the sterile area. I could see myself doing these every once in a while.

Unfortunately I'm in Florida and would run into some risk with any recording device that would pick up audio.

EDIT: After I wrote this I decided to double-check, in public audio recording is OK (as you posted elsewhere), now to find some equipment :-)

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/2011 03:41AM by raisitup.

I have done upwards of 400 shops on airport circuits (not having a ticket). The FF and kiosk, and small retail interactions range from 2 minutes to 5 minutes, max. (Language learning kiosh, up to 10 minutes.) Sit-down restaurant/bar food shops run 20-30 minutes (Once yo have made all of the required observations you can ask for a box and take away your food.). I can do 15 shops at Dulles, on 2 adjoining concourses in less than 3 hours, including 2-3 meal shops. BUT, that is because I only have to go thru security once.

I'm a new Mystery Shopper and have done one airport shop and loved it.

I'm a Frequent Flyer, usually logging over 100K a year, so I'm hoping I can snag some shops when I'm on the road.

I know I can do searches for zip codes in my destination cities as a way to find shops, any advice as to a better way to find them?

Also, what is a "circuit shop" and does the MSC label it as such?

You might want to do some research into who does airport shops (Bare International and Beyond Hello come to mind) and once registered you can reach out to them. They will probably be willing to work with you on your travels.

LisaSTL Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You might want to do some research into who does
> airport shops (Bare International and Beyond Hello
> come to mind) and once registered you can reach
> out to them. They will probably be willing to work
> with you on your travels.

Thanks! I'm registered with both but I wouldn't have thought to reach out to the scheduler about my travel schedule.

learning....learning....learning....!

CSE does airport shops, including some circuits where you may have 10-18 shops on several different concourses.

walesmaven Wrote:
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> CSE does airport shops, including some circuits
> where you may have 10-18 shops on several
> different concourses.


Thanks walesmaven. I've registered with CSE

This company, ACPview advertised mystery shops for airports on a yahoo group. They charge $9.95 for full access to their board. I did not pay but requested and was assigned 4 ATL airport shops due before 11/30. After the shops were done the company claimed they had sent me an email saying they had changed the date to December. The day I did the shops and entered them into the system the dates were still on their internet system as November.
ACPview cannot be reached by phone. When you call the number you go on hold until you are disconnected. I cannot log into my account on their website. I cannot find them listed registered with the state of georgia as a business (they have a georgia address). I emailed and asked what name they did business under. I have received no reply. The last I heard the scheduler said she would check on all this. It has been a week now since I did the shops.

What do y'all think about contacting the companies that were shopped?