Is this the Mystery Shopper Leaving Behind Thousands of Online Shopping Carts?

John Smith, as we will call him, started shopping early and didn’t stop for days, in fact he only stopped when the credit card company blocked the card!

He visited a car parts-supply site where he loaded his cart with a replacement indicator lever, emergency strobe light, and two dozen other items. He then hopped over to a home-goods merchant for another 10 items including wood picture frames, address plaques, a towel rack, and a postbox. He ordered one of every kind of baby bundle, ranging from about €80 to nearly €500, from a site that sells infant sleeping boxes popular in places such as Finland strangely enough…

“When the roughly 48-hour spree was over, John Smith did what he always does, he walked away without buying anything.” said his dad.

“For more than a year, online merchants selling items ranging from kayaks to keychains have puzzled over the mystery shopper with the generic name behind thousands of abandoned carts, interestingly, each cart has only one item.

“It is more than a nuisance. John Smith’s activity skews analytics that online merchants use to advertise and make other critical business decisions. The shopper also uses a bunch of bogus email addresses, and sellers get warned by their internet service providers for sending follow-up pitches to phantom customers.”

In fact, “John Smith” is a baby, who, left with his parents Ipad to amuse himself during the lockdown decided to do “what his mummy does” and order stuff from the internet- loads of stuff!

The “Phantom Buyer” was only caught when he fell asleep clutching the iPad after a mega-shopping session one afternoon, his dad came in to see what he was up to and there it was in plain sight- an Amazon order for 100 baby rattles! Frantic phone calls and emails pursued and the situation is now under control.

Awwww, Baby John Smith is apparently crying out for his pal the iPad but his parents have told him its the shop for repairs- it’s going to a long repair…