Accompanied Shops are usually just 1 or 2 respondents, they are sometimes friends and sometimes unknown to each other, but recruited against ‘like’ or ‘opposite’ criteria.
These generally take one of three different forms; for example, meeting at a supermarket and both the researcher and the respondent(s) spending looking around the supermarket, with the respondent possibly ‘shopping’ during the interview and the researcher observing and/or suggesting/questioning, throughout the visit.
Sometimes this will also include a visit to an additional shop to compare and a third option is to include a visit to the respondent’s home, to look at how they live, maybe even engaging with their family – the possibilities are endless.