Online Shopping & eCommerce Survey Questions

In the eCommerce space, businesses that adapt to the needs of the market are usually the ones that succeed. In order for a business to make those necessary changes, it's crucial that they collect data about every element of their customers' experiences. That’s where customer feedback surveys and questionnaires come in!

At UserLoop, we'll be explaining why customer feedback surveys are important and how you can create effective ones for your eCommerce business. We'll also throw in some example questions for good measure!

Why Are eCommerce Questionnaires And Surveys Valuable?

eCommerce questionnaires are important tools for maximizing a business' ability to facilitate positive experiences and improve their product or service offering.
Here’s a brief summary of the areas that customer feedback can influence:

• Segmentation: eCommerce questionnaires and surveys help companies understand customer behavior. This—in turn—allows marketers to better target and serve specific groups.

• Marketing: Surveys and questionnaires provide unbiased perspectives that can highlight not only who your prospective customers are, but also their preferences and requirements. This can then be used to guide marketing decisions.

• Customer Experience: eCommerce questionnaires serve as a channel to gauge customer satisfaction, identify product issues, and provide insight into cross-selling opportunities.

• Reviews. Surveys can help you identify parts of your store experience which could be improved, helping you avoid negative reviews.

How Do You Create an Effective eCommerce Questionnaire?

Creating effective eCommerce questionnaires is not particularly complex. All it requires is a little research, planning, and the right questions!
Here's how you can go about creating an online shopping survey or questionnaire:
Step 1: Develop Your Wording
Ideally, you should keep the wording of your questionnaire simple and easy to understand so that respondents don't get confused when answering it.
If at all possible, avoid using jargon or technical terms in your questions. They will only add to the respondent's confusion—especially if many of your target audience aren't familiar with the specific terms.
Step 2: Brainstorm Relevant Questions
Now, it's time to begin writing eCommerce questions. This stage of the process will be different for every eCommerce business.
For example, if one business is launching a new product or service, it might make sense for them to gauge how excited people are. If another is receiving more returns than usual, they might want to use the survey to find out why.
Keep reading for help coming up with questions that facilitate meaningful insights!
Step 3: Send It Out!

Once you've developed a questionnaire, it's time to send it out into the world. There are a few ways to go about this.

Perhaps the most popular option is the customer feedback email. These emails are triggered by a certain customer action (e.g., checking out) and usually contain an invitation to complete a short survey on a third party website.

While you're free to create and schedule these emails manually, we're obligated to mention that businesses who automate their customer feedback requests with UserLoop get 20X more responses than those who don't!

Step 4: Review Survey Responses and Make Adjustments

Once a respondent has completed your survey, you should review their responses closely. With UserLoop, this part of the process is simple. The program automatically collects survey responses on a central dashboard alongside information about the customer who submitted it.

Now that you understand the process, let's dive into some questions!

eCommerce Survey and Questionnaire Questions

Here are some eCommerce questions you might want to consider including in your next questionnaire. Do note that these categories are arbitrary, and you can include the same questions throughout different parts of the customer journey.

Pre-Purchase eCommerce Questionnaire Questions

Many business owners and marketers tend to focus on post-purchase questions in their surveys. This can be a mistake, as you’d be ignoring the many different factor that influence a purchasing decision before it is made.

The people who don't purchase can offer insights that the people who do buy from you can't. Sure, their responses might be less flattering overall. However, by using their responses to identify pain points (i.e., the reasons people haven't made purchases), you'll be able to make changes that improve your conversion rate.

Example Questions:

• How would you rate your overall experience with our website?

• What can we do better in the future?

• Why didn't you buy the product/service that you were considering?

• Do you like how our website likes?

• How likely would you be to recommend this website (or product/service) to a friend?

Post-Purchase eCommerce Questionnaire Questions
Whenever your website converts a visitor into a customer, you have the opportunity to better understand how and why. The more you know about the how's and why's of your conversion pipeline, the better your conversion rate will be.
To gain this understanding, we recommend sending out regular post-purchase surveys. 

Example Questions:

• Which features of the product/service were most important to you?

• Why did you choose the product/service that you purchased?

• Was price or quality your top consideration?

• Are you currently interested in any other products?

Checkout Order Confirmation Page Survey Questions
Checkout survey questions can be important for gaining insights on successful purchasing decisions. With UserLoop, you can automatically install a survey right on your Shopify order confirmation page that appears once someone has completed an order. To increase your completion rate, make sure to keep the questions simple and easy to answer.

Example questions:

• How did you hear about us?

• Rate your buying experience from 1 to 5?

• Do we provide enough information about our products?

• Why did you make this purchase?

• Did the discount help you make a decision?

Abandoned Cart Surveys
You may also want to use abandoned cart and exit surveys to find out why someone abandoned their cart, identify issues in the checkout process, and consequently boost conversions. You can use UserLoop to send out an abandoned cart survey once every 24 hours to customers who have not completed their checkout process.

Example questions:

• Why didn't you complete your checkout process?

• What would have helped you complete a purchase?

• What additional information did you require completing your purchase?

• What's keeping you from making a purchase?

Product Quality Questionnaire Questions
As you're selling a product, we recommend including post-purchase questions that help you determine whether your customers are satisfied with its quality. Here, it's important to get specific so that you have all the information you need to make the necessary adjustments. You can send them this email once they’ve received their product. 

Example Questions:

• Do you feel that the product was worth the cost?

• Did anything about the product not function as intended?

• Were you surprised by anything about the product?

• What do you like most about the product that you purchased today?

• What do you dislike most about it?

• Why did you choose it in the first place?

Customer Experience Questionnaire Questions

You definitely want to make sure you ask follow-up questions designed to gain insight into each customer's experience with your store. It's important to understand what went well and what didn't, as well as why. By doing so, you'll be able to avoid the kind of problems that drive away customers for good.

Example Questions:

• How would you rate your overall experience with our store?

• How likely are you recommend us to a friend?

• Are there any features of our store that need improved or added?

• If you could do one thing to improve [product] what would it be?

• Did you receive any support from our website? If so, how effective was it?

• Was there anything about your experience that prevented you from becoming a customer?

• What can we do better next time?

Shipping Questionnaire Questions

If you're shipping your product to customers, you'll want to ask questions related to their experience with this process. By analyzing the data you collect, you can improve the customer's journey from order placement through shipment and delivery.

Example Questions:

• How long did it take for us to ship your order?

• Did the shipping cost influence your decision?

• Would you have wanted other shipping options?

• What was your most recent experience with shipping/tracking? Please explain.

• How quickly did you receive your product/service after purchasing it?

• What could we do better in our shipping processes?

Customer Retention Questionnaire Questions

Finally, if one of your goals is to increase customer retention rates, we recommend asking questions that relate specifically to this topic. Customers who rate their likelihood of recommending your company and describe their overall satisfaction with service and product quality are much more likely to remain customers!

Example Questions:

• What would prevent you from purchasing from us again?

• What is it about our brand that makes you likely to remain a customer?

• What makes our business stand out from all other companies in this industry?

• Do you see yourself placing another order in the future?

Surveys Are Important For Ecommerce Businesses

Most businesses squander countless opportunities to improve the experiences of their customers every day. Surveying your customers about their experience is one of the easiest ways to break this cycle.

Effective eCommerce questionnaires and surveys can help you identify areas for improvement before they become widespread, company-wide problems.

We hope that these eCommerce questions will help you get started! If you're ready to maximize the positive impact of all this customer feedback, learn more about how UserLoop can help!