The Ecommerce simulation allows you to test your products in realistic online environments — such as Amazon, Walmart, Target, Nike, Costco, Kroger, Chewy, or a generic web store — by adding products, pricing, descriptions, and images to your survey to simulate a directed shopping environment for respondents.

In This Article

• Adding Ecommerce to a Survey
• Customizing Products
• Adjusting Layout and Cart Settings
• Previewing an Ecommerce Simulation

Adding Ecommerce to a Survey

To add an Ecommerce Simulation to your survey:

1. Drag and drop the Ecommerce icon into the Survey Editor, or click the icon to insert it directly.
2. Type or paste a list of products into the Product name text fields.
3. Click the image upload icon next to a product to add images from your computer. Alternatively, use the Search API field: pick a marketplace (Amazon, Walmart, or Target), enter a search term or product identifier, and aytm imports matching products — including their images, prices, and other details.
4. Use the Web dropdown to select a store type: Amazon, Walmart, Target, Costco, Nike, Chewy, Kroger, or Standard Web.
5. Use the SKUs dropdown to set the maximum number of products to import (default 10). 
   You can import up to 20 SKUs when the child SKUs checkbox is checked, and up to 50 when it is unchecked. Learn more about Child SKUs.
6. Click Import to retrieve product details — images, titles, and descriptions—and populate the product cards. If you import more products than the simulation's limit, click the X next to any product to remove it. 

Due to API data restrictions and default location-based variances (which can slightly alter product availability and search order), some imported products may not look exactly as they do live on the storefront. Be prepared to make slight manual adjustments or manually add items as needed.

⚠️ Note: Importing products via the API can take time (up to 20 minutes). You can safely close your tab while it processes in the background and return later to finalize your import.

Customizing Products

After importing products, each element on a product card is fully editable. Click on a product card to:

• Add, rearrange, or replace product images, including an optional 3D model
• Edit the product name
• Set pricing—regular price, discounted/sale price, per-unit price and units, and (on Amazon) a Subscribe & Save percentage; per-unit pricing isn't available on Nike
• Apply badges and labels based on the selected web store (for example Best Seller, Amazon's Choice, Prime, Featured, Best Seller, Highly Rated, Limited Stock, and many others)
• Add a star rating, review count, and (on Amazon and Standard) purchase-frequency social proof like "10K+ bought in past month"
• Write a custom product description

Adjusting Layout and Cart Settings

Further modify the layout and cart settings to help simulate a realistic shopping experience and ensure a more controlled testing environment.

1. Click the Desktop layout and Mobile layout drop-downs to select how many products appear per row on each screen type. Desktop offers 3, 4, 5, or Automatic (default Automatic); Mobile offers 1, 2, or Automatic (default Automatic).
2. Open the Cart settings dropdown to implement purchase limits:
   • Max #/product—check this box and enter a maximum number of each product a respondent can add to their cart. 
   • Max #/cart—check this box and enter the maximum total number of items a respondent may add to their cart, counting all quantities of every product together (not the number of different products).
   • Max spend—check this box and enter a maximum amount of money each respondent may spend on their cart.
3. Click the Banner Ads button to configure ads for the simulation. See Adding Sponsored Placements to an Ecommerce Simulation for the full setup, platform differences, and metrics.

For products with variants, each child SKU counts as its own product—all three limits apply to each variant separately. See Adding Child SKUs (Product Variants) for details.

⚠️ Note: The Mobile layout dropdown is available for the Amazon Web and Standard Web storefronts. For Walmart, Target, Nike, Chewy, and Costco, mobile layout stays at Automatic and can't be changed from the editor.

Previewing an Ecommerce Simulation

Before launching an Ecommerce Simulation, aytm encourages previewing the experience to ensure everything is functioning as intended and aligned with your research goals.

1. Click the Preview button located above the research test. This will launch a full simulation of the selected storefront, allowing you to experience the interface exactly as your respondents will. 

What you can do depends on the survey's mode:

• Shopping mode (or Focus mode)—respondents browse, add items to a cart, and check out, just as they would on a real storefront.
• Find mode—there's no cart. Clicking a product selects it, which submits the answer immediately and moves on to the next question.

In either mode, you can:

• Scroll to browse products.
• Select a product's image to view its detail page, where you can switch between variants if the product has any—see Adding Child SKUs (Product Variants).
• Zoom in on images.
• Read descriptions, pricing, and customization details.

In Shopping or Focus mode, you can also:

• Add items to the cart and adjust quantities as needed.
• Click Buy Now on a product's detail page to add it and go straight to checkout.
• On Amazon, subscribe to a product using Subscribe & Save.
• Select Cart, remove any items you no longer want, and click Check Out to finalize your selections and proceed to the next survey question.

Click Exit Simulation to leave the experience without completing it. If a product includes an N/A option, selecting it submits the question immediately without adding anything to the cart.

⚠️ Note: Actions unrelated to the task, such as filtering or searching, are intentionally disabled to maintain focus and consistency.