Companies across all sectors are witnessing a gradual drop in consumer trust. Many people have transitioned from traditional sources of knowledge to the web as a means of verification. Nowadays, consumers look to their peers more and seek the recommendations, testimonials, and experiences of fellow shoppers before making buying decisions. But, as a retailer, how do you reassure online shoppers that they can trust your eCommerce store?
This question is extremely crucial at any time of the year, and particularly during this holiday season. Especially for brick-and-mortar sellers who are new to the world of digital commerce – thanks to the completely unexpected and transformative COVID-19 pandemic – we’re providing 6 trust-building tips to help you convince online shoppers that your eCommerce store is trustworthy.
1. Reassure Online Shoppers about Safety
Physical contact is the primary transmission mode for COVID-19. Consequently, physical distancing regulations are either strictly in force or highly recommended. Many businesses have implemented a firm contact-less delivery policy to give people an opportunity to enjoy the advantages of home delivery without worrying about contracting COVID-19.
If your eCommerce store has implemented such a policy coupled with other regulations on product handling, from packing to delivery, and safety precautions in your workspace, including wearing masks, gloves, and personal protective equipment (PPE), ensure you clearly communicate them to shoppers. And one great way to do that is by sending an email about it to all the shoppers who’ve opted in to your email list to demonstrate that you care about their safety.
2. Make Sure You’re Using HTTPS
By now you – and most of your website visitors – should be used to seeing HTTPS in the browser bar when visiting websites. Not only can using HTTPS improve your search ranking and help more consumers find your business, it provides a sense of security and authenticity to your e-business.
HTTPS stands for hypertext transfer protocol secure, and it adds encryption, authentication, and integrity to your site via an SSL or TLS certificate. For more information on how to choose an SSL certificate and other tips for making your eCommerce website secure, check out our blog here.
3. Display Security Logos and Trustmarks
Displaying security logos and trust marks is arguably one of the most effective ways to reassure online shoppers new to your eCommerce store that they can key in their card information with confidence. In this case, make sure to partner with a reputable logo-maker that can design a visually appealing and effective security logo. Trustmarks, also known as site seals, are available in a wide array of forms and reassure shoppers about numerous security aspects of a site.
As with any critical changes to your website and/or web design, be sure to test what brings the desired results and what doesn’t.
4. Build Your Social Proof
Social proof is another great way to assure shoppers that they’re safe shopping on your eCommerce site. Although product reviews are instrumental in compelling shoppers to purchase a specific product, they don’t reveal any information regarding the trustworthiness of the online store. This is where rating sites come in handy.
Rating sites offer an average user rating and basically tell the shopper that fellow shoppers have purchased from the online store before and would highly recommend it. So ensure your site has positive reviews and ratings on leading rating websites.
5. Enhance Your Website Experience
This is the best time to revamp your website. To get started, create a unique landing page to make the most out of the holiday shopping craze. Add an extra flavor of branding to your landing page by using new domain extensions like .space, .store, .fun, and .online.
To keep shoppers from going to other competing sites, improve the load speed of your website to less than 5 seconds. And a great way to do that is to optimize images and to get rid of all unnecessary plugins. Also, optimize your eCommerce site for mobile devices to create unforgettable mobile shopping experiences. If you intend to break through in international markets with your eCommerce enterprise, make sure you hire adequate translation services that will effectively localize your website for user experience, in terms of language, culture, and customs.
6. Excellent Checkout Design
Trust becomes incredibly important in the checkout process. Even if shoppers have had an amazing experience from visiting the site to choosing items to purchase, issues at checkout can still keep them from buying. Ensure your checkout is professionally designed. The steps for completing purchases should be well laid out.
There should be minimal risk of user errors in the completion of forms. The checkout design should be clean – no third-party seals and unnecessary logos. It should also provide assurances about the security of payments, warrants, and shipping.
The Parting Note
Building customer trust in your eCommerce store is not a one-time thing. Instead, it’s something you need to work at every day. But for this holiday season, the 6 tips we’ve laid out in this blog should help you reassure your customers they can trust your eCommerce site.
Note: This blog article was written by a guest contributor for the purpose of offering a wider variety of content for our readers. The opinions expressed in this guest author article are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect those of GlobalSign.
