Required vs. Optional Shopify Survey Questions: What to Choose

For a short Shopify post-purchase survey, require an answer only when it is essential to interpreting a submitted survey. Make extra detail optional when the main answer is still useful without it. Give customers an honest way to express uncertainty instead of forcing a guess.

In OrderSurvey, Answer required applies to completing the survey. On the Thank you and Order status pages, it does not make answering a condition of placing an order. Customers can leave the survey unanswered.

This guide explains that distinction, shows a discovery-question example, and gives you a way to test and report optional follow-ups. The example figures are illustrative, not merchant results.

Separate participation from question requirements

There are two decisions: whether a customer participates, and which answers you need from someone who chooses to submit.

A required question on the customer's current survey path must have an answer before the survey can advance past it or submit. An optional question can remain blank. Neither setting guarantees that a visitor will finish the survey.

OrderSurvey's Shopify placements are separate app blocks. Add and save the block on each intended page; changing a question's requirement does not publish a missing block. Shopify explains this in its checkout and accounts app setup instructions.

Use the placement guide if you are still deciding where to ask. A requirement cannot fix a timing mismatch: a buyer on Thank you may not yet know how delivery or the product will turn out.

Choose the minimum information you need

Start with the decision the answer will support. If you want to investigate discovery sources, a channel choice may be enough to identify the next question. A creator's exact name can be useful without being essential to every submitted response.

These are design starting points, not measured conversion recommendations. There is no universal answer-count gain promised by switching a field to optional.

Keep wording and choices clear. Pew Research Center's question-writing guidance explains why wording, answer choices and questionnaire context matter, and why new questions should be pretested. A complete-looking dataset is not useful if customers had to choose an answer that did not fit.

Example: require the channel, leave the name optional

Suppose your team wants to know which discovery sources deserve further investigation.

Main question: “How did you first hear about us?” Use a single-choice question with options appropriate to your store, including Other and I don't remember. Mark it required if every submitted survey needs that classification.

Conditional follow-up: For “A creator or podcast,” ask “Which creator or podcast?” Leave this short-text question optional. A customer can remember the type of source without recalling its name.

Other detail: You can offer a separate optional text question after Other. Treat that explanation as additional information; do not interpret a blank as a specific source.

In the survey builder, select each question and set Answer required individually. Connect the follow-up to the appropriate answer, save, and review the path in the preview. The discovery-options guide helps you choose the actual channel list.

The distinction between optional and conditional matters. Optional describes whether a visible question needs an answer. Conditional describes whether the customer reaches that question at all. A required question on a path the customer does not take should not block their submission.

Test empty answers and changed paths

Use the builder preview first, then an authorized test order to confirm a saved response. Preview completion alone is not evidence that a live response was stored.

1. Leave the main required question blank. Confirm that you cannot complete the survey through that path until you choose an answer.
2. Choose the creator option, then leave its optional follow-up blank. Submit and verify that the main answer is saved.
3. Choose a different source. Confirm that the creator-name question is absent and does not block completion.
4. Change an earlier answer in a stepped survey. Confirm that the new path is correct and that an answer from the abandoned path is not included in the submitted response.
5. Test an optional-only version if you intend to use one. Submitting it with no answers should not create an empty saved response. An answered main question with a blank optional follow-up should still save the answer provided.

Check each live placement with a suitable unanswered order. Keep known test responses separate from the analysis. For more complex paths, use the branch-testing checklist.

Report missing detail without inventing an answer

The Responses CSV has one row per answered question. It is not a record of every question displayed or every time someone declined to answer.

Illustrative example: After selecting one unchanged survey, removing known tests and resolving repeated order IDs, you have 20 orders with a discovery answer. Six chose “A creator or podcast.” Three of those orders also contain a usable name.

Report the two results separately:

• 6 of 20 answering orders selected creator or podcast: 30%.
• 3 of those 6 orders supplied a usable name: 50%.

The remaining three orders have no usable name in this reporting sample. Do not recode them as “no creator,” invent a name, or call them three confirmed skips based on the CSV alone. Check the question version and branch rules before interpreting the missing detail.

Keep I don't remember as an explicit answer category. It is different from a blank optional field, a hidden question and a customer who never submitted anything. Orders with no saved survey are not represented as blank response rows.

If you change a question from required to optional, record when it changed and compare periods separately. The questionnaire change log provides a practical record. A change in answer counts after an edit does not by itself establish that the edit caused it.

Start with Free, choose Unlimited for the export workflow

OrderSurvey Free includes in-app survey analytics, conditional follow-ups and 100 submitted survey responses across the store per rolling 30 days. A submitted survey can contain multiple question answers; each answered question is not a separate response against that allowance.

Unlimited is $24 USD/month and adds CSV export, unlimited responses and low-score NPS webhook alerts. You can set required and optional questions and review responses on Free. Choose Unlimited if you need the CSV workflow described here; see the plan details.

Install OrderSurvey from the Shopify App Store, start with one useful question, and verify what is saved when a follow-up is blank. The product walkthrough shows the app; book setup help if you would like a personal walkthrough.

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