secret shopping

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/16-03/ps_consumerreports

This is utterly hilarious. The kinds of things people have to do to get by with this job.. gotta count the vanilla.. count the vanilla. I'm not sure I'd be wary of someone with a shopping cart full of condoms, but it would be a bit strange. That's not exactly a market that can be corned (or is advisable to stock up, it's not like there are sales). Maybe he said he was giving them out for a school program and people became more suspicious that way. I was however amazed at the cost of this type of research. Almost 3 million on cars alone? Granted the automobile report is like pure gold. It's not exactly cheap to buy things, especially the new things that industries come out with that are jacked up on price still (electronics especially). But it hadn't quite entered my mind how expensive it would be.