Election 2014, brought to you by...Presto Insta-Shops???

It's Election Day in the USA!  Did you vote?  If so, you might have seen a Presto Insta-Shopper at the polls, working on a special Election Day project for Ipsos and Reuters!

Geolocation (or, where in the world AM I?)

Recently, many of you participated in our "1000 Cups of Coffee" product launch (for those who didn't hear about it, we offered to buy 1000 cups of coffee for shoppers in order to get you to try out Insta-Shops - the project is over, but you can see a video about it at http://insta.prestomobilesurveys.com/site/ShopperWelcome).

For the large majority of our Insta-Shoppers, everything was smooth sailing!  Shops were easy to find and quick to complete (and hey, how about those super-fast payments?  Could you get used to that?)  But some shoppers had problems verifying their location, and found themselves unable to complete the shop.  "The Presto app isn't working!" you told us.  "I'm RIGHT THERE, why can't the app find my location?"

Nothing new under the sun?

If you always do what you always did,

you will always get what you always got.

- Albert Einstein

Some people say that nothing new happens in mystery shopping -- or even, that nothing new can happen in mystery shopping.  We think they're wrong, and we mean to prove it.

Welcome to the Presto Insta-Shoppers blog.  This blog is the creation of SurfMerchants, a software company located in Boston -- the makers of SASSIE and the new Presto Insta-Shops.  We've been creating mystery shopping software for 15 years now, and we see potential for innovation that will benefit everyone in the industry.

Our success depends on the partnership of shoppers, mystery shopping companies, and technology providers.  That's why we created Presto Insta-Shops: to support that partnership with better technology tools.  Our goal is to make mystery shopping easier and enhance shoppers' potential to do more shops in less time with less effort.

The articles on this blog are written by members of the SurfMerchants staff, and include topics such as:

• How-to articles
• Changes and new features in Presto
• Developments and trends in mystery shopping

...and a few otters may sneak in, too.  Otters are like that.  It's part of the reason why we like them.

So stay tuned!  We've got lots of great content coming your way!