How to use surveys to grow your ecommerce business (+ 55 expert questions)

Whether you get 1 or 1,000 responses to your ecommerce survey, asking the right questions guarantees you’ll discover something about your customers’ preferences that can be used to optimize the buying experience and increase conversions.

This guide will take you through what ecommerce surveys are, how to set them up, and which questions to ask at every step of the customer journey. 

What’s an ecommerce survey?

An ecommerce survey is a set of questions asked of online store visitors before, during, or after the point of purchase. 

Ecommerce surveys questions can be:

• Close-ended: multiple-choice questions that give you quantitative data you can use to track opinions over time (e.g. 72% of visitors love the new homepage) 

• Open-ended: questions that users answer in their own words, which gives you qualitative data to better understanding context

There are 2 main types of surveys:

• On-site survey: an embedded survey that collects feedback when people visit a specific website page or take an action (like trying to exit)

• Link survey: a survey link to be shared with customers via email, social media, or another platform

Benefits of using surveys on your ecommerce store

Collecting (and acting on) customer feedback has compounding benefits for both your customers and your business. With ecommerce surveys, you can: 

• Improve the customer experience—hear first-hand what brings joy and frustration to customers so you can learn how to deliver a better purchase experience  

• Increase your conversion rate—identify sales objections, then use this information to design a site that addresses them effectively and drives conversions 

• Measure your customer metrics—benchmark things like customer loyalty, satisfaction, and the likelihood customers will promote your products to track your store’s success over time

• Get cost-effective insights—online surveys are relatively inexpensive to run (with Contentsquare, you can create up to 100 for free), especially compared with focus groups, market research, and user interviews

55 ecommerce survey questions used by experts

Here’s a batch of example questions you can ask your customers–plus when to ask them. 

💡Pro tip: If none of the questions below quite fit your needs, there’s another option: Contentsquare’s AI survey generator acts as your personal consultant, creating the best questions for your survey goals. 

Type what you hope to get out of the survey into the feature, and it’ll generate a set of unbiased questions likely to spark the responses you need. 

Contentquare’s AI assistant provides you with instant with survey questions related to your goals 

Website survey questions

Website surveys give you feedback from store visitors before the point of conversion. Use them to check your page designs and messaging are resonating as intended.

Homepage survey questions

Your homepage is the entry point to your site for most visitors—so it’s the ideal place to ask them about why they’re here. Ask questions such as:

• What are you looking for today?

• If you didn’t make a purchase today, what stopped you?

• What are your first impressions of our website?

• What could be improved on the website?

These questions reveal what people expect from your homepage, so you can design your layout to serve their needs and preferences.  

Landing page survey questions

Landing pages are targeted entry points to your website, making them prime real estate to ask people how they found your site. Ask questions like: 

• How did you hear about this [website/product]?

• What led you to us today?

• How did you find out about us?

• What inspired you to come to [website]?

Product category and search page survey questions

Shoppers perform a product search and filter product lists when they’re looking for the item they want to purchase. To discover whether your search functionality is working as intended, ask questions such as: 

• Do you have trouble finding the product?

• Can you tell us which product you hoped to find?

Product listing page survey questions

Product pages give visitors important information about what they’re buying: pricing, photos, descriptions, and shipping and returns policies. Getting feedback from customers here reveals what else visitors would need to know before they click “add to cart”. For example, you could ask questions like: 

• How can we improve this page? 

• What’s your biggest concern about purchasing this item?

• What’s your biggest frustration with finding a new [product]?

• What other information would you like to see here?

• Do you have any questions before you complete your purchase?

Shopping cart survey questions

A shopping cart survey helps you fix issues that could lead to cart abandonment. 

For best results, trigger it to appear after users have spent 30+ seconds on the page. This won’t interrupt a happy customer who’s ready to check out—but will likely catch someone who’s getting confused. 

💡 Pro tip: create a survey that pops up after 30 seconds easily in Contentsquare. Simply head to your survey’s behavior settings, click on “After a delay on the page”, and type in “30” seconds. 

How to make your Contentsquare survey appear after a delay 

Ask questions like: 

• If you could change anything on this page, what would it be?

• What information would make your decision to buy easier?

• What’s stopping you from buying?

Exit-intent survey questions

Exit-intent surveys appear when a user clicks off to leave your site. Finding out why people leave your store can help you reduce your bounce rate.

💡Pro tip: create exit-intent surveys easily in Contentsquare from the the behavior setting  in your survey, mentioned above—except this time, select for your survey to appear “When the user is about to abandon the page on a desktop device” instead. 

You could ask: 

• Why would you like to stop placing the order?

• Sorry to see you go! What’s your reason for leaving? 

• Did you find what you were looking for on our site?    

An example of a Contentsquare exit-intent survey question 

Post-purchase survey questions

Post-purchase surveys take place after the point of conversion in your store, and study how customers feel about their purchase decision and experience. 

Thank you page survey questions

Ecommerce customers are usually directed to a thank you page after making a purchase. Placing a survey here lets you collect customer comments while the buying experience is fresh in their minds.

You could ask:

• Was there anything about this checkout process we could improve?

• How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement (0-10)? “It’s very easy to purchase [product] on this website.”

• How strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statement (0-10): “I was able to purchase [product] without being interrupted.”

• How would you rate your overall experience?

• What’s one thing that nearly stopped you from buying from us?

• Which other options did you consider before choosing [product name]?

• What would persuade you to use us more often?

• What was your biggest challenge in finding the right [product type] online?

• What persuaded you to use us instead of a competitor?

• What other products would you like to see us offer?

• What was your biggest concern about purchasing from us?

• What persuaded you to complete your purchase today?

• If you could no longer use [product name], what one thing would you miss the most?

• Was there any information you would have liked to know before you made a purchase?

NPS survey questions

Net Promoter Score® (NPS) is a quantitative metric that measures how likely a customer is to recommend you to others. It’s calculated based on the question:

Your NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors (customers who score you <6) from the percentage of promoters (customers who score you 9 or 10). NPS is popular because it’s used to compare performance between companies and across industries.

Contentsquare’s Surveys capability automatically calculates your NPS, and tracks it over time

You can ask an NPS question at different stages of the customer journey, from immediately after purchase to when a customer receives their order. We also recommend tweaking the wording to suit your target audience as well as the moment you’re asking them about:

• Considering your experience with us so far, how likely are you to recommend [company name] to a friend or colleague? (0-10)

• Now that you’ve received your [product], how likely are you to recommend [company name] to a friend or colleague? (0-10)

• How likely are you to recommend [product/brand] to someone like you? (0-10)

Then, ask a follow-up question to learn why customers rate you a certain way. Such as:

• Why would you (not) recommend us?

• What did we do well?

• What can we improve on?

• What can/should we do to WOW you?

Customer satisfaction and effort survey questions

A customer satisfaction survey measures what customers think about every touchpoint they had with your ecommerce brand. You can ask closed questions about their general satisfaction: 

• Did our product do what you wanted it to do?

• How happy are you with your overall experience with us? (1-10)

Then consider follow-ups like:

• What did you love most about the experience?

• What could we have done to improve?

• What almost stopped you from completing your purchase?

Asking open-ended questions can give you greater insights into your customers’ experiences.

You can also find out the customer effort score (CES) for any part of the buying journey by asking:

• How easy was it for you to complete [action] today? (1-7) 

Customer support survey questions

Asking customers how they feel after a customer support chat will help you improve the service they receive next time. Ask questions like:

• Did your problem get resolved today?

• Were you able to find the information you were looking for?

• How satisfied are you with our support?

• How would you rate our service on a scale of 1-10? 

• How easy was it to solve your problem today?

• What information could we make clearer for you next time?

How to run a successful ecommerce survey

While the idea of opening the floodgates to customer feedback can be daunting, setting up an ecommerce survey couldn’t be easier. 

Here’s how to create a survey with Contentsquare in 5 minutes or less. If you’re not already a user, get started with our free plan.

1. Choose the goals for your survey

First up, identify what you’d like to find out about your customers with this survey, since this will dictate the questions you ask, where you embed it or link to it, and which customer segments you show it to. 

If you’re unsure which stage of the customer journey you’d like your survey to target, check out Contentsquare’s Journey Analysis capability. It turns your customer journey data into a sunburst-shaped visualization, which allows you to spot which pages users typically pass through on the way to conversion—and where they drop out.  

Place surveys on high drop-off pages to spot easy wins for optimization, or on pages that users typically visit before converting to understand what’s working well.

Understand your customer journeys more clearly with Contentsquare’s Journey Analysis capability 

💡Pro tip: when establishing your survey goals, note that you can target specific user segments thanks to Contentsquare’s User Attributes, which is used to filter who gets to see your survey. 

For example, you could plan to discover:

• How users in Romania responded to your Black Friday campaigns

• What iPhone users thought of your checkout process

• Whether women aged 18-35 would recommend your brand 

There’s a varied range of demographic and behavior markers to consider, so be ambitious.  

Contentsquare offers a broad range of targeting options for your surveys  

2. Create a new survey

Once your goals are settled, open up Contentsquare and select “Voice of Customer” from the menu on the left. From there, click on “Surveys”, and then “+ New survey”. A menu will appear that lets you

• Browse templates 

• Start from scratch 

• Generate from goal 

For a quick start, choose from Contentsquare’s library of 30+ expert designed templates, or hit “Generate from goal” to get Contentsquare’s AI assistant to create your questions. You’ll be able to edit your survey either way. 

The “New survey” menu in Contentsquare 

Then choose your settings:

• User Attributes lets you choose who sees your survey  

• Targeting lets you choose which pages and devices your survey appears on 

• Behavior settings lets you choose which user actions trigger your survey (e.g. exiting your site) 

3. Customize it 

Once you’ve chosen your survey questions, customize the survey to match your site’s branding. There’s 5 different embed options available, so you’ll be sure to find one that complements your site’s existing UX. If you’re on Contentsquare's Pro plan, you can customize it even further with CSS. 

Once you’re happy with the way your survey looks, hit publish. 

4. Analyze the results 

Let your survey run until you’ve collected a representative sample of responses. 

Then, use Contentsquare’s AI to turn your responses into actionable insights. It’ll create clear data visualizations from any questions with numerical or yes/no answers, and convert your open-ended responses into a short written report with key insights and suggestions for next steps. 

Contentquare’s AI analysis of a survey 

Power up your surveys with session replays

By now, you have a good idea of what to ask and how to use ecommerce survey data to improve customer experience and sales.

When you’re ready to level up, connect survey responses (what users say) with ecommerce session replays (what users do) to gain a deeper understanding of customer behavior. You’ll be well on the way to building a better ecommerce experience than your competitors.

FAQs about ecommerce surveys