Accompanied shops & surfs

In our experience, one of the most effective ways to understand a consumer’s buying behaviour is to accompany them on a shopping trip. With online sales consistently equating to more than a quarter of all retail sales each month for the last two years*, the need to better understand online purchasing habits is increasing whilst insight into the in-store experience remains ever-important. Accompanied shops and surfs can have equal importance for many retailers today. 

What is an accompanied shop?

As the name suggests, an accompanied shop is where a researcher attends a shopping trip along with the consumer. Respondents are pre-recruited and invited to spend 45 minutes to an hour walking around a store, as if they were carrying out their routine shopping. A senior researcher accompanies them and conducts an in-depth interview as they tour the store. There is usually 15 minutes or so to spare at the end where the researcher and respondent can sit down and discuss other topics from the topic guide (contains questions to be covered during the process). Alternatively, the time can be used to visit a competitor store and make comparisons between the two. 

As well as accompanied shops, we also carry out shopping 'intercepts'. These are similar to accompanied shops but respondents are recruited in situ during their shopping trip. We use recruiters to approach people in store and ask them to take part in an interview. The interview tends to be shorter (10–15 minutes) rather than the 45 minute pre-recruited accompanied shop.

The obvious advantage of these approaches is that the researcher can see firsthand the types of products the respondent is drawn to, the type of questions they may ask staff, what they think of the in-store environment and promotions, for example.

What is an accompanied surf?

Essentially the online equivalent of an accompanied shop, an accompanied surf (also known as online accompanied shopping) is when a customer is observed by a researcher as they interact with a product on the internet. Neuroscience is often essential to this process, using techniques such as face coding and eye tracking to give a clearer image of what the customer is really looking at and their initial reactions. Accompanied surfs enable retailers to obtain a greater depth of insight into how their target audience interacts with their products online and how best to improve the customer journey.

A huge benefit of accompanied surfs is that they can be done anywhere as long as the respondent has a computer or a mobile phone. This means it is easily accessible to a lot of people in many different locations. Accompanied surfs can be carried out alongside the researcher asking questions or just on the customer’s own accord. Although asking questions can be useful to help extract key bits of information, in line with client objectives, it can lead to a less reliable overall study as the participant may be swayed as to how they act based on the questions posed to them. The use of eye trackers and face coding can help the researchers understand the genuine response of the participant and gain more reliable results.

*Source: ONS Retail Sales Index time series (DRSI) dated October 2025.