Bulgaria is the only country that has its own domestic mystery shopping association, called Bulgarian Mystery Shopping Association (BMSA), registered in the beginning of 2007. Its founders are the companies Market Eyes and Pragmatica.

BMSA held its first conference at the University of National and World Economy (UNWE) in Sofia on November 16, presenting its subject, activities, members and future plans.

Mystery shopping is comparatively new to Bulgaria. It enables companies to serve their loyal clients more efficiently and to establish longer-term relationships. It means monitoring the company’s services or that of the competition by sending trained professionals, who pretend to be potential clients and investigate the way services are offered and the way the company’s employees treat clients. Mystery shopping assesses the presentation of the firm’s employees, whether they observe the standards for presenting the product or services, whether they emphasise their advantages in comparison to the competitive brands, how effective they communicate to the potential buyer and how they react to “critical or dangerous” questions.

Through this marketing tool, an analysis of the competition’s behaviour is done.

Mystery shopping can be done at shops, restaurants, in the service sphere, hotel management and many others, including banks, universities and specialist agencies.

The business is developing dynamically in Europe, North America and Asia. In the past five years, it achieved a turnover of more than $1 billion.

BMSA chairperson and co-founder Dinyo Madjarov (pictured, second left) briefed conference participants on the mission and goals of the Bulgarian association. BMSA aims to develop and implement mystery shopping theory and practice in the country, as well as harmonising local practice and theory with European standards and those of the rest of the world. BMSA also lobbies for legislative changes in the mystery shopping field in Bulgaria.

Members of BMSA so far include Bulgarian companies specialising in the service. These include Market Eyes, Pragmatica, Face off Bulgaria, Shoppix, ClientX, Market Test, Progress Consult and Synovate. In November, Market Eyes was elected a member of the international Mystery Shopping Providers Association, becoming the first Bulgarian member.

Madjarov is one of BMSA’s founders and its chairperson. He has more than five years of experience in the marketing studies and mystery shopping field. He is also a lecturer in marketing surveys at UNWE. The other BMSA founder is Simeon Zhelev (third left), a lecturer at UNWE. He has more than 20 years of experience in the marketing research field. The third co-founder of BMSA is Yulian Dobrev (left). He is surveys director at Pragmatica agency and lectures at the New Bulgarian University.

The host of the event was UNWE marketing department with head Velina Baleva (right). She welcomed the participants at the newly opened UNWE conference hall. After the end of the presentation BMSA managing board handed out the certificates to its new members.