DealTime ready to launch shopper survey tools for 375 merchants

DealTime Ltd., the result of a completed merger announced today between price comparison provider DealTime and online consumer survey company Epinions, plans to launch online shopper survey tools for 375 e-retailers later this month, Iggy Fanlo, chief revenue officer, tells InternetRetailer.com.

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The survey tools, packaged as the Epinions Merchant Survey, are designed to give web merchants real-time feedback from surveys that seek comments from online shoppers about their online shopping experience and the subsequent fulfillment process. The survey form regarding the shopping experience comes in a pop-up window that appears after an order confirmation; the fulfillment survey arrives two weeks later via e-mail.

The survey tools are still being tested by about 20 merchants and are showing a survey completion rate of 20-25%, Fanlo says. To promote their use by shoppers, the surveys were designed to be short with only 8 questions on each survey form. Both surveys typically take about 2 minutes or less to complete, he says. Of the 8 questions, 4 can be customized by a merchant; the other four are standard questions about how well the shopping experience and fulfillment service worked.

"The surveys are generating a high rate of response, which we attribute to the surveys` customizable content and short length," says Bryan Lewis, managing partner of office products retailer FJAProducts.com, one of the beta testers of the surveys.