Have you ever heard of something called a secret shopper? These are people hired by retail companies to pose as shoppers (though sometimes they’re actually given money to make purchases) and carefully observe every detail of their experience in order to report how things are going. Well, On Off Digital World, an electronics and photography store in mid-town Manhattan, has seen its share of secret shoppers — except these people aren’t hired by the company at all; they’re really just regular folks who happen to stop by!
But they function as secret shoppers, if you think about it, by reporting their experiences — only they do this online, usually anonymously. Thanks to the marvels of the worldwide web, companies now don’t even have to hire secret shoppers in order to gauge customer sentiment; they only have to look up a review online!