Ipsos acquires Maritz’s Mystery Shopping Business

Ipsos is pleased to announce the acquisition of the Mystery Shopping business of the Maritz group, one of the largest mystery shopping service providers in North America.

The operation follows Ipsos’ relentless focus on answering its clients’ core business questions and the ambition to lead the way in providing Mystery Shopping services globally.

Staffed by over 150 employees, Maritz’s Mystery Shopping business has been operating for over 35 years, mostly in North America. The company has a substantial portfolio of blue-chip retail clients in Oil and Gas, Automotive, and Banking, complementary to Ipsos’ client base.

2019 revenues of this division were slightly above 15 million USD. By way of this transaction, the employees, shopper panels, and client contracts of the
Maritz’s Mystery Shopping business will be transferred to Ipsos, effective 31 January 2020.

Nick Mercurio, Ipsos’ leader in the USA for the Channel Performance Service Line will head the expanded North America mystery shopping activities, under the leadership of Craig Bradley, Ipsos Global Channel Performance Service Line Leader.

Didier Truchot, Ipsos Chairman & CEO, said: “This acquisition will significantly expand Ipsos’ Mystery Shopping offer, improving our operational capabilities and consolidating our North American and global clients.

It is a proof of our commitment to meet the needs of our clients who seek better customer service performance across all retail channels. We welcome the experienced researchers, new client relationships, and new
capabilities”.

Mike Sinoway, MaritzCX CEO, commented: “We are very excited about this opportunity for our mystery shoppers, employees, and customers to move forward as part of Ipsos. The opportunity to collect meaningful service improvement insights are higher than ever with mystery shopping, and the future looks bright as our network, technology, and employees join a market leader that is investing significantly in this area.”

Chris Dann, Ipsos Malaysia Group Service Line Leader for Customer Experience, Mystery Shopping and Retail and Consumer Intelligence teams:
“The latest acquisition further strengthens our new global Service Line, Channel Performance, where we have combined our Mystery Shopping, Retail Performance and Retail and Consumer Intelligence capabilities. We can now work seamlessly across all retail channels and provide holistic answers to our clients business questions. This builds on the acquisition of Market Pulse and GFK’s Customer Experience arm in 2018 – positioning us as the global market leader for Mystery Shopping.

Abad Ali Ashraf, Ipsos Malaysia Country Service Line Leader for Mystery Shopping: “Ipsos Malaysia conducts more than 20,000 mystery shops annually and has a large shopper panel of more than 1,100+ across Malaysia. In Malaysia, we have been consistently growing organically year on year, making us the fastest growing as well as largest provider of mystery shopping service in Malaysia.

We have also been able to successfully create a diverse portfolio of clientele including oil & gas, automotive, BFSI, retail, tech & telco, property developers, ecommerce platforms and F&B. Ipsos Malaysia mystery shopping service offering is also an end-to-end offering, which means we are self-reliant who can execute a full MS project here in Malaysia.”