Crafting the Perfect eCommerce Customer Survey: Questions That Drive Growth

Are you looking to grow your eCommerce store but don’t know where to start?

Conducting market research is the key to any successful business, and eCommerce is no exception. But research is a broad and difficult topic, so it’s best to focus on the most impactful strategy: Surveys.

By the end of this article, you’ll be armed with all the knowledge you need to conduct your own market research and see real growth in your eCommerce store.

So let’s get started!

Main Questions Your eCommerce Market Research Survey Will Answer

Before you can craft an effective eCommerce survey, you need to know what your market research will help you answer.

Market research in eCommerce is intended to generate actionable insights that your company can use to grow. For this process to work effectively, it’s essential to know who your customers are and what they want from your business—enter market research surveys.

A good market research survey will help you answer key questions about your target customers, their needs and wants, and the feasibility of your proposed product or service. Here are the main questions your survey should answer.

Who Is Your Target Audience?

This is probably the most important question you can answer with market research. Knowing your target market will help you focus all your marketing efforts and ensure you’re reaching the right people. 

You may think you already know the answer, but sometimes the results of true market research will shock you.

For example, you might think your target market is women aged 18-24, but after conducting market research, you find that the majority of your customers are actually men aged 25-34. 

This information would obviously change the way you market your store.

Where Is Your Target Audience?

Again, this is a question that will help you focus your marketing efforts. If you know where your target audience is, you can make sure you’re advertising in the right places and using the right channels.

For example, if you know that most of your target market is on Instagram, then you need to make sure you have a strong presence on that platform.

What Is the Size of Your Target Audience?

Knowing the size of your target market will help you understand how much potential there is for growth. 

If your target market is small, then you might need to look at ways to expand it. On the other hand, if your target market is large, you know there’s a lot of growth potential, and you can focus on strategies to capture a larger market share.

What Is the Value of Your Target Audience?

This is an important question because it will help you understand how much money you can realistically expect to make from your target market.

For example, if you know that the average order value for your target market is $100, then you know that you need to generate 10 orders to make $1,000 in sales.

On the other hand, if you know that the average order value for your target market is $50, then you need to generate 20 orders to make $1,000 in sales.

A Quick Summary of the Types of Market Research You Can Do

Now that you know the overall questions you’re trying to answer with your research, it’s time to look at the ways in which you collect this information. 

There are two main ways to conduct market research: Primary and secondary. Here’s a chart that breaks down each type of research.

The best way to conduct market research is to use a mix of both primary and secondary research, as it will give you the most comprehensive understanding of your target market.

While the process of conducting secondary research is pretty straightforward (you just find what’s out there), it’s harder to conduct highly valuable primary research since it requires you to interact directly with your target market. 

Let’s look at the best ways to do it.

How to Build an Effective Survey for Your eCommerce Audience

There are many ways to collect primary data, but surveys might be one of the most efficient.

Surveys allow you to access essential demographic information about your target audience that you can use to improve your marketing strategies. They also offer invaluable insights into your business or products/services through honest customer feedback.

To make sure your survey is effective, there are a few things you need to keep in mind:

1. Choose the Questions for Your Survey

To ensure that your market research survey provides the information you need, it’s important to know what type of questions are going into it. 

This part might seem like a difficult task, but don’t worry! There are actually some really easy ways to do this successfully and effectively.

First, let’s look at the ways you can format your questions or how you will ask them. 

If you’ve ever taken a survey (or a test), you’ve probably seen one of the three following question formats: Open-ended, closed-ended, and multiple-choice.

Each of these types has its own advantages and disadvantages. We’ve broken them down in the following chart.

Once you’ve selected how you want to ask your questions, it’s time to decide which questions you’ll actually ask.

Remember, your market research aims to gain actionable insights by better understanding who your target market is and what they expect from your business. 

You’ll need to ask demographic questions as well as questions about your eCommerce store.

So how can these be translated into survey questions? Here are some examples of what those might look like on a survey for an eCommerce retail store:

1. What is your age?
2. What is your gender?
3. What is your zip code?
4. How much money do you spend on clothes per month?
5. How often do you shop for new clothes?
6. How important are Brands to you when you’re shopping for clothes?
7. Would you be interested in buying clothes from our store?
8. Why or why not?
9. Which of the following words would you use to describe our store? ( Select all that apply)
   • Affordable
   • Trendy
   • Stylish
   • Sophisticated
   • Fun

When you’re building your survey questions, it’s important to have a blend of open-ending, close-ended, and multiple-choice questions. This will give you a complete picture of who your target audience is.

If you focus on only one format, like close-ended questions, your customers may feel like you are just collecting information and don’t care about their opinions. 

Conversely, you don’t want all open-ended questions because it will take your audience too much time to complete, giving you fewer or poorly worded responses. 

2. Decide How You’ll Distribute Your Survey

Once you’ve decided what type of questions you want to ask, you need to figure out how you’re going to distribute your survey and collect the responses. There are a few  ways to do this:

• Email: One of the most popular ways to collect survey data is via email since you can send your survey to an unlimited number of potential respondents. 
• Social media: You can use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to share your survey with your customers and prospects. Each of these sites has large numbers that will make reaching lots of people easy.
• Website: You can embed your survey on your website or blog. This is a great way to collect responses from people who are already interested in your product or service.
• Mail-in/In-person: You can collect in-person responses by conducting interviews or administering paper surveys. This is a great way to collect detailed and personal responses.
• Other: There are many different ways you can distribute your survey, such as through online forums, discussion groups, or via word of mouth.

There is no one right way to distribute your survey. The best method depends on your goals and the audience you are trying to reach. Experiment with different methods to see what works best for you.

3. Analyze Your Results

Once you’ve collected your survey data, it’s time to analyze the results. This is where you’ll start to see patterns and trends emerge, which can help you make better decisions about your eCommerce marketing strategy.

There are two main approaches to looking at your survey data:

• Quantitative data analysis: This is when you look at the numbers and try to find trends. It’s great for getting an overview of the data, but it can be hard to get detailed information.
• Qualitative data analysis: This is when you read through the responses and look for common themes. It’s great for getting detailed information, but it can be time-consuming.

Both qualitative and quantitative data have their own strengths and weaknesses, so it’s essential to use both types of analysis to get the most accurate picture of your results.

Once you’ve analyzed the data, you should understand your target market well. Armed with this information, you can change your marketing strategies and start growing your eCommerce store.

Leverage Your Customer Data with Patch

Using survey data, you can create impactful customer retention campaigns to maximize the LTV of your customers.

This is where Patch comes into play, making it easy to set up automated campaigns that you can run on autopilot to cultivate brand loyalty and generate more revenue from your existing customers.

Here’s a quick video showing how Patch automation work:

Want to learn more about our platform? Get in touch with our team today to schedule a free demo.