The Effect of Mystery Shopper Reports on Age Verification for Tobacco Purchases

Abstract

Mystery shops (MS) involving attempted tobacco purchases by young buyers have been employed to monitor retail stores’ performance in refusing underage sales. Anecdotal evidence suggests that MS visits with immediate feedback to store personnel can improve age verification. This study investigated the impact of monthly and twice-monthly MS reports on age verification. Forty-five Walgreens stores were each visited 20 times by mystery shoppers. The stores were randomly assigned to one of three conditions. Control group stores received no feedback, whereas two treatment groups received feedback communications every visit (twice monthly) or every second visit (monthly) after baseline. Logit regression models tested whether each treatment group improved verification rates relative to the control group. Post-baseline verification rates were higher in both treatment groups than in the control group, but only the stores receiving monthly communications had a significantly greater improvement than control group stores. Verification rates increased significantly during the study period for all three groups, with delayed improvement among control group stores. Communication between managers regarding the MS program may account for the delayed age-verification improvements observed in the control group stores. Encouraging inter-store communication might extend the benefits of MS programs beyond those stores that receive this intervention.

Contextual and community factors associated with youth access to cigarettes through commercial sources

“…Procedures to verify that clerks consistently check IDs (eg, 'mystery shoppers' or reward and reminder programs) may be critically important if such policies are to be effective. 38 The importance of store policies is further highlighted by our results showing that visible age-of-sale signs were associated with an increased likelihood that the clerk requested proof of age. Similar findings have been reported regarding the presence of signage sales of alcohol to minors.…”

Tobacco outlet density, retailer cigarette sales without ID checks and enforcement of underage tobacco laws: associations with youths’ cigarette smoking and beliefs

“…Many studies have found that enforcement of underage sales laws through compliance checks is associated with decreased rates of tobacco sales to youths (18, 19). Similarly, programs that reinforce retailers for not selling tobacco products to minors have been shown to be effective in increasing ID checking rates (20). The effect of reduced underage sales on youths’ cigarette smoking, however, remains inconclusive.…”

Implementing a Reward and Reminder Underage Drinking Prevention Program in Convenience Stores Near Southern California American Indian Reservations

“…Additional reward and reminder visits, held at different times in order to thwart potential alerting of other stores, and with new trained volunteers, should help to further establish the long-term utility of this intervention. Communication between stores may help to reinforce the sense that clerks should be alert to the potential for decoy purchase attempts at any time (12). …”

“…In reward and reminder programs, youthful decoys attempt to purchase alcohol and then either “reinforce” clerks who do not sell or provide a “reminder” of the law to clerks who do sell. Such programs, also referred to as “mystery shopper reports” (12), have been shown to significantly reduce tobacco sales to minors and to reduce self-reported smoking and drinking (13). A large randomized community trial on environmental approaches to preventing underage drinking included an effective reward and reminder and compliance program targeting convenience store outlets in 36 small Oregon communities (14–17).…”