We were paying $99 a month for a survey, so we built our own.

Post-purchase surveys aren't new. We didn't invent them, and we're not about to pretend we did. If you already use one, then this'll be a short read: ours does the same thing for less.

You've probably filled one of ours in, as it happens. You know, that little survey after you check out with us. That's it. That's the whole thing.

Here's how it started. A couple of years ago we began asking one question on the thank-you page: how did you first hear about us? We'd got tired of Meta reckoning it drove every sale, Google reckoning the same, and neither of them being able to tell us why anyone actually bought from us. So we paid for a proper service, and it worked.

It also cost us ninety-nine US dollars a month. For a survey.

We looked at that line on the invoice for about six months before someone said the obvious thing out loud: we could just build this. It was a mad thing for a packaging company to say, but we did it anyway.

So we did

It's called Squiz. It sits on the thank-you page, asks a question or two while someone's still in the moment and still likes you, and files every answer against the real order.

It's been running on our own checkout for six months. Just over 12% of the people who see it answer it, which is roughly what we were getting from the expensive one. Same job, same result, and we're not paying rent on it anymore.

What you've told us

Worth saying what came out of it, because "we saved money on software" isn't much of a story on its own. And most of this came from you.

When we asked first-timers how they'd heard about us, here's what we found:

• Google: 51%
• Instagram: 19%
• Facebook: 15%
• A friend or colleague: 7%

Fine. About what we expected. Then we put order value next to it, and it inverted.

Google sends us half our customers and our smallest orders. Facebook sends a fraction of the volume and the biggest ones, around 60% bigger on average. We haven't turned anything off over it, but we've stopped treating an order from one channel as identical to an order from another, which is exactly what we'd been doing.

We also asked repeat customers what brought them back. Two thirds said some version of I remembered I needed to stock up. Not an email. Not an ad. A cupboard, a low shelf, and someone typing our name in. Which is humbling if you spend money on retargeting, and a decent argument for spending it on the box that turns up at their door instead.

And then there's the merch range. That exists because we asked what else you'd want with your branding on it, and enough of you answered that it stopped being a maybe. No focus group, no arguing about it in a meeting. We asked, you told us, we ordered it. The same question is shaping what we do next with custom packaging, so if you've ever filled one in, some of that range is partly your fault.

Why we're giving it to you

Because $99 a month is a lot for a small store, and most of the people we sell packaging to are one or two people at a kitchen table.

There's a free plan that stays free. The paid ones are a fraction of what the alternatives charge, and they're there for when you've grown into needing them, not before.

That's the whole pitch. We made a thing for ourselves, it turned out handy, and it costs us almost nothing to let you use it too.

Have a squiz →

And if you never install it, ask your customers anyway, with whatever you've got. They know where they came from. Nobody ever asks them.