Go read this story about a mystery shopper creating confusion across the web

guest · Jul 2, 2020

Go read this story about a mystery shopper creating confusion across the web
The mystery of John Smith’s many abandoned shopping carts
July 2, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/21311121/john-smith-mystery-shopper-wsj-abandoned-shopping-carts

For over a year, a mystery shopper known only as “John Smith” has been creating confusion across the web. He’s repeatedly visited numerous online stores, ranging from auto supply shops to home goods merchants, placed single items in multiple shopping baskets, and then left without buying anything. The Wall Street Journal has the story of the mysterious shopper, and it’s well worth reading to get to the bottom of what’s been happening.

On a recent Wednesday, he went on a spree lasting a total of 48 hours. One screenshot shared by FinnBinn, an online store that sells boxes for newborns to sleep in, shows 17 abandoned shopping carts from [...] Then it got even worse:

“Then it started getting out of hand,” Mr. Bercuson said. “The amount of abandoned carts we got were just insane.” In May, he said, John Smith started and walked away from 73 orders.
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John Smith’s story would be more amusing if he wasn’t creating problems for the stores. Sites that automatically send follow-up emails to people when they leave unpurchased items in their shopping carts have received error replies from their email providers about sending emails to nonexistent accounts. Others reported that the abandoned carts skewed their store’s analytics.
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The Wall Street Journal: Who Is the Mystery Shopper Leaving Behind Thousands of Online Shopping Carts? [paywalled]

John Smith started shopping early on a recent Wednesday and didn’t stop for days.

He visited an auto-supply site where he loaded his cart with a replacement turn-signal lever, emergency strobe light and two dozen other items. He hopped over to a home-goods merchant for another 10 items including wood picture frames, address plaques, a towel rack and mailbox. He ordered one of every kind of baby bundle, ranging from about $80 to nearly $500, from a site that sells infant sleeping boxes popular in places such as Finland.
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longshots · Jul 2, 2020

Mr. Gornstein said he can’t picture John Smith but has sketched out an identity based on his purchases.
He’s a boat owner, or knows one, based on personalized picture frames designed for just such a person.
An order for monogrammed leather checkbooks indicates he may prefer an old-fashioned way of paying bills.
The coccyx cushion in his cart suggests he may have suffered a fall.
He’s also a romantic, if an attempt to buy a Valentine’s Day wall plaque is to be believed.
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OR, he is none of the above, and has deliberately purchased these items to form a persona very unlike his own.

But, thanks for making this public, as there are probably plenty of buyers that may like to copy cat this method as retaliation for unhappy experiences with online retailers.

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Go read this story about a mystery shopper creating confusion across the web

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