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Kate Spade Mystery Shopping: 60 Store Visits Across North America in Under Three Weeks
Mystery shopping research is only as good as the people you send through the door. Send the wrong profiles into the wrong stores with vague instructions, and you'll get vague results. Send the right people — carefully screened, culturally representative, genuinely engaged — and you'll uncover the truth about your customer experience that no internal audit could ever reveal.
That's exactly what we delivered for Kate Spade across 12 stores in the United States and Canada. Sixty mystery shoppers. Six regions. Two store formats. One single point of contact. And a timeline that would make most agencies politely decline.
The North American mystery shopping market is valued at over $1.29 billion in 2025, reflecting a growing demand from brands seeking real-world customer experience intelligence. The difference between a good mystery shopping programme and a great one? The quality of the people behind it.
The Challenge
Kate Spade needed an honest, unfiltered view of their in-store customer experience — and they needed it fast. The brand wanted to understand how their retail and outlet stores were performing through the eyes of real consumers, not corporate auditors or regional managers doing scheduled walk-throughs.
The questions were specific. How are sales associates greeting and engaging customers? Are recently launched products being displayed and merchandised effectively? Does the in-store environment feel aligned with the brand? Is the checkout experience smooth — or forgettable?
And critically, Kate Spade wanted this evaluation through the lens of their most important growth audience: Gen Z women. According to PwC's 2025 consumer research, Gen Z consumers are increasingly choosing in-store shopping experiences over digital — making the physical retail environment more strategically important than ever for brands competing for this generation's attention and loyalty.
But the scope was ambitious. Kate Spade wanted answers from mainline flagship locations — South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Century City in Los Angeles, Rockefeller Center and Broome Street in New York, the Galleria and NorthPark in Houston and Dallas — alongside outlet stores in Citadel Outlets (Commerce, CA), San Francisco Premium Outlets (Livermore, CA), Sawgrass Mills (Sunrise, FL), Woodbury Common (Central Valley, NY), Houston Premium Outlets (Cypress, TX), and Toronto Premium Outlets in Halton Hills, Ontario.
Twelve stores. Two countries. A mystery shopping programme that required precision recruitment, airtight coordination, and a fieldwork window of less than three weeks from start to finish.
Our Approach
Recruitment That Goes Beyond Demographics
The foundation of any credible mystery shopping study is who you send into the store. For this project, we didn't just recruit warm bodies willing to walk through the door — we built a screener designed to identify the exact consumer profiles Kate Spade needed to evaluate their experience against.
Every mystery shopper was a Gen Z woman aged 18–28 — the brand's core growth demographic. Each one had purchased or intended to purchase a handbag within the relevant timeframe, shopped in brand retail or outlet stores (not exclusively online), and spent between $100 and $749 on handbags. They were all aware of Kate Spade and open to purchasing from the brand, giving us a mix of existing customers and non-customers for a balanced perspective.
But we went further. Our screening included attitudinal and behavioural filters — shoppers had to demonstrate genuine enthusiasm for fashion and style, enjoy bringing people together, and express confidence through their wardrobe choices. We required a written response detailing a standout shopping experience and a video response describing their last handbag purchase. If they weren't articulate, detailed, and engaged, they didn't make the cut.
Every mystery shopper was verified through a multi-step screening process including demographic qualification, purchase behaviour validation, attitudinal alignment, and video articulation checks — ensuring only the most expressive, engaged participants entered the field.
The result: 60 carefully profiled mystery shoppers deployed across all 12 locations, with ethnicity quotas reflecting the diversity of Gen Z in each market. Five shoppers per store. Thirty across mainline locations, thirty across outlets.
Two Distinct Shopper Missions
We designed two segments to capture different dimensions of the customer experience:
🛍️ Browse-only shoppers (Group A — 30 participants) visited their assigned store as a regular customer would. They observed the environment, interacted with staff naturally, noted product displays and signage, and documented their experience through discreet photos and video. No purchase required — just pure, uninfluenced observation.
🧾 Purchase shoppers (Group B — 30 participants) had an additional mission: buy a handbag. Outlet shoppers received reimbursement of up to $150; mainline shoppers up to $400. This segment captured the full end-to-end journey — from browsing through product selection, staff interaction during the decision-making process, and the checkout experience itself. Receipt and product photos were required for verification.
Both groups completed a detailed post-visit questionnaire on the Recollective platform within 24 hours of their store visit, plus a video reflection on their overall experience — what they enjoyed and what could be improved.
Speed Without Shortcuts
The entire programme — from recruitment sign-off to final fieldwork completion — was executed in under three weeks. In line with the professional standards set by the Mystery Shopping Providers Association (MSPA), every shopper received detailed pre-visit instructions covering exactly what to observe: first impressions, store cleanliness and organisation, staff greeting and engagement, product findability, pricing clarity, display quality, and checkout experience. They knew what to look for without being told what to think — preserving the authenticity that makes mystery shopping valuable.
Shoppers visited their assigned stores between September 5th and 11th, with all follow-up activities and documentation submitted by September 12th. Each participant signed an NDA before their visit. Store associates had no knowledge of the research.
The Insights
This study delivered something that internal audits and customer satisfaction surveys simply cannot: a real-time, unfiltered snapshot of the Kate Spade experience as seen through the eyes of their target consumer.
Across 12 locations and 60 individual visits, Kate Spade received granular, store-by-store feedback on staff behaviour, product presentation, environmental quality, and the purchase journey. The dual-segment design meant the brand could compare the browsing experience against the buying experience — revealing whether staff engagement changed when a customer moved from looking to purchasing, and how the checkout process held up under real conditions.
The Gen Z lens was equally valuable. These weren't professional mystery shopping contractors cycling through assignments — they were real handbag consumers with genuine opinions about Kate Spade's brand, product, and positioning. Their feedback reflected how the next generation of luxury-accessible consumers actually experiences the brand in person — from the moment they walked through the door to the moment they left.
The visual documentation — store photos, video walk-throughs, and post-visit reflections — gave Kate Spade a rich multimedia library of customer experience evidence that could be shared across regional teams, used in training, and referenced in merchandising decisions.
The Impact
✨ This project demonstrated what happens when mystery shopping is designed as research, not just evaluation. By treating every shopper as a carefully selected research participant — not a tick-box auditor — MindMarket delivered insights with the depth of qualitative research and the scale of a multi-market programme.
For Kate Spade, the study provided actionable, store-level intelligence across their North American retail and outlet footprint. Specific stores could be compared against each other. Mainline could be benchmarked against outlet. Regional patterns could be identified. And all of it was grounded in the authentic voice of the consumers the brand most wants to reach.
For the broader research design, the project proved that rigorous mystery shopping can be executed at speed without compromising on participant quality, geographic coverage, or methodological depth. Sixty shoppers. Twelve stores. Six regions. Two countries. Under three weeks.
That's what happens when recruitment is treated as research design, not logistics.
Ready to See Your Customer Experience Through Fresh Eyes?
Whether you need mystery shopping across five stores or fifty, in one country or ten, we make it brilliantly simple. One point of contact. Rigorous recruitment. Insights that actually move the needle.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is mystery shopping in market research?
Mystery shopping is a qualitative research method where carefully selected individuals visit a business — a store, restaurant, hotel, or service location — posing as regular customers. They evaluate the real customer experience from first impressions through to checkout, then report back with detailed feedback. Unlike customer satisfaction surveys, mystery shopping captures what actually happens on the ground, not just what people remember afterwards. At MindMarket, we treat mystery shoppers as research participants, not auditors — which means richer, more nuanced insights.
How do you recruit mystery shoppers for a study like this?
We don't just find people willing to visit a store — we build a recruitment screener tailored to the brand's target audience. For this Kate Spade project, every mystery shopper was demographically qualified, behaviourally screened (active handbag shoppers who browse in-store), and attitudinally vetted through written and video responses. Only articulate, expressive participants who demonstrated genuine enthusiasm made the final cut. It's recruitment designed as research design — and it's what separates meaningful insights from generic feedback.
How many mystery shops do you need for reliable results?
There's no universal number — it depends on your objectives, geographic spread, and what you're trying to measure. For Kate Spade, 60 mystery shops across 12 stores (five per location) gave the brand enough depth to identify store-level patterns while maintaining consistency across regions. If you're benchmarking a handful of flagship locations, 15–20 shops might be sufficient. For a national or international programme, we'd typically recommend 50 or more. We'll always help you find the right scope for your budget and goals.
Can mystery shopping be conducted across multiple countries?
Absolutely — and that's one of MindMarket's core strengths. This project spanned the United States and Canada, covering six distinct regions. Our global network means we can coordinate mystery shopping programmes across any market, handling local recruitment, cultural nuances, and regulatory requirements through a single point of contact. Whether you need coverage in two markets or twenty, the process feels the same on your end.
What do mystery shoppers evaluate during a store visit?
The evaluation framework is always customised to your objectives, but common focus areas include staff greeting and engagement, product knowledge, store environment and cleanliness, visual merchandising and display quality, pricing and promotional clarity, ease of navigation, and the checkout experience. For the Kate Spade study, shoppers also documented their visit through discreet photography and video, creating a multimedia evidence library the brand could use for training and operational decisions.
How quickly can a mystery shopping programme be executed?
Speed depends on scope, but we're built for fast turnarounds. The Kate Spade programme — 60 shoppers, 12 stores, two countries — was completed in under three weeks from recruitment to final data submission. Single-market studies with fewer locations can be turned around even faster. We never compromise on participant quality to meet a deadline, but our recruitment infrastructure and operational processes mean we can move quickly when you need us to.
How much does mystery shopping research cost?
Pricing depends on the number of locations, geographic spread, shopper profile complexity, and whether purchases are part of the methodology (as they were for half of the Kate Spade shoppers). A focused programme covering 5–10 locations in a single market might start from £5,000–£10,000, while multi-market studies with 50+ shops will sit higher. We're always transparent about costs upfront — get in touch and we'll scope a programme tailored to your needs.
What's the difference between mystery shopping and customer intercepts?
Both capture real-world customer experience data, but they work differently. Mystery shopping uses covert evaluators who pose as real customers — the staff doesn't know they're being observed. Customer intercepts involve approaching actual customers immediately after their experience to gather feedback. Mystery shopping is ideal for evaluating staff behaviour and brand compliance; intercepts are better for understanding genuine customer perceptions. Many brands use both methods together for a complete picture.
MindMarket is a global qualitative market research agency specialising in mystery shopping, ethnographic research, focus groups, and more — across 55+ countries. Learn more about how we work.
