Trust in eCommerce is the hardest thing to win and the easiest thing to lose as well. However, building trust in eCommerce stores includes one of the most undervalued metrics in the success of the most powerful brands. A study conducted by Salesforce Research says that 95% of consumers decide to stay loyal to a brand that they trust. Moreover, 92% are most likely to make additional purchases and services from trusted websites.
No doubt, gaining consumer trust in eCommerce sites offers a hidden magic wand to boost your conversion rates. Moreover, it helps to attract more engaging customers to try your eCommerce store for the first time without any hesitation. You don’t want your customers to look at your eCommerce sites and immediately feel dicey about the legitimacy of the brand.
So, how can you establish trust in eCommerce? How can you remove the concerns and build long-term relationships with the customers? Does your eCommerce website make people concerned while trusting the site? It’s super significant for a brand to pass the initial eye test.
You need to win the consumers’ trust in eCommerce stores to show your visitors that you’re trustworthy. You have to show off that everything you have is worth it for them to check out.
In this article, we have shared some important points affecting the consumer’s decision about whether or not they want to keep going. The blog discusses the list of important measures to take to win consumer trust in eCommerce sites.
Importance of Trust in eCommerce Website
Let’s face it. The importance of trust in eCommerce really matters. The digital shopping sphere has been increasing at an incredible rate, and so has the importance of trust in eCommerce. An initiative interface, usability, and loading time include some of the most important elements to building a successful eCommerce store. However, that’s not it. Only focusing on the design elements is not enough.
Often by running behind these elements you forget to focus on the basic needs to get your sales from the store. Certainly, we should not neglect to include earning the trust of our consumers. Therefore managers must understand the importance of trust in eCommerce and should take efficient steps to establish confidence in users. Businesses need to earn their customer trust in eCommerce at every step, over and over again.
Having an accurate, up-to-date online presence has always been important for building trust in eCommerce websites. No doubt, customer trust involves the key to a successful organization. Upholding the promises made to your consumers by your advertising content has been absolutely vital. Building trust in eCommerce offers an essential tool for a transaction to take place.
In conclusion, a website that doesn’t look trustworthy leads to high bounce rates and low conversion rates. We will cover some important considerations on how to build trust in eCommerce and the importance of trust in eCommerce. Below we have highlighted various things that adds to the credibility of your eCommerce website.
Common Hesitations of Consumers Coming in the Way of Your eCommerce Website
Now that we have discussed the importance of trust in eCommerce. It’s time to look at the common challenges coming in the way of earning customers’ confidence. The digital world has been filled with a variety of choices and alternatives. It’s obvious for consumers to have doubts when shopping online.
To emerge as a leader in the eCommerce space, businesses need to overcome these hesitations in this highly competitive environment. But firstly, we need to address these basic consumer hesitations to achieve a competitive advantage in this crowded environment. Here we have highlighted some of the major concerns that come in the way of building trust in eCommerce websites.
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Authenticity of your eCommerce Store
No doubt, online shopping has made it very convenient for buyers to make purchases. However, this easy alternative also comes with various issues like fake products, additional charges, etc. The most common concern of customers before making a purchase includes the authenticity of product quality.
Based on research, around 81% of online buyers feel concerned while making a purchase on a totally new website. Hence, this results in the decline of potential sales and new customers. Furthermore, nearly 71% agree that high responsiveness and quickness add up to a satisfactory shopping experience. With more and more websites emerging as aggregate sellers, more fraudulent sellers also register and sell low-quality products.
Customers hesitate to purchase low-quality products in the name of original brands. In addition, these websites sometimes even refuse to refund or exchange faulty products. The cases of fooling customers’ confidence have been increasing day by day. Hence, understanding the importance of trust in eCommerce with the necessary steps has become a requirement.
When 80% of the eCommerce stores feel they deliver superior customer service, only 8% of their customers feel that it’s true. Another issue that becomes a hurdle in building trust in eCommerce stores includes a lack of customer support. There is always a possibility of confusion when we shop online. Either its payment failure due to technical glitches or late delivery of certain products.
Here, the customers want to contact customer support to seek reliable information on the inconvenience. Good customer support helps customers to connect more with the brand and build customer loyalty. While most eCommerce service lacks personalized interactions, some of them are constantly trying to improve the factor with constant attempts to replicate the face-to-face structure.
The percentage of consumers avoiding digital purchases due to security concerns has grown to 15-16% in the past 10 years. A survey conducted in 2012 says that 45% of digital shoppers were concerned about identity theft. Even a single failure in providing protection to the customers directly leads to a lack of confidence in the eCommerce sites.
Providing reliable eCommerce security involves one of the most crucial components of building trust in eCommerce. Customers will feel anxious when they enter their credit card or personal information. Certainly, the increasing cases of hackers and fraudsters’ attacks on confidential data include a major concern for many customers.
Moreover, phishing includes another way for hackers to pose as an organization and ask them for sensitive data. Hence, it becomes super important to assure the customers of their privacy and security. Even a single privacy lapse directly impacts consumer trust in eCommerce.
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Lack of product information
As per the study conducted by the Product Information report, the quality of product data readily impacts digital sales and consumer trust in eCommerce. 87% of consumers don’t want to make repeated purchases from websites that made inaccurate information. For instance: cart abandonment by a customer because of hidden charges to the product cost.
Based on the information displayed, consumers tend to decide whether or not to purchase the product or not. You have to precisely share all the product’s features and benefits in a reliable manner. Make sure that all the displayed characteristics are clear and understandable.
In the end, bad customer experiences unavoidably result in polluting the whole digital ecosystem. And the moment customers’ trust breaks, it becomes extremely difficult to win it back. Therefore, your brand needs to take considerable precautions to earn consumers’ trust in eCommerce.
You need to take the necessary steps to earn their trust by being harmed by counterfeit products on those sites. Of course, building trust in eCommerce sites is not easy. However, here we have provided you with some basic points to make your site more trustworthy than before.
How to Establish Consumer Trust in eCommerce Stores?
How to build trust in eCommerce sites? This question might be triggering you from the start of the article. Well, here we have shared some detailed points to build a website that consumers trust.
A. Building Trust in eCommerce in the Discovery stage
This phase focuses on earning the customer’s trust when they initially discover your brand. It’s really important to prove to them your trustworthiness as it’s the first (and might be the last) opportunity to attract them to shop from you. Additionally, it’s the initial customers who help your band to attract further customers with their reviews. So it’s your duty to provide them with a happy experience.
1. Security badge and trust seal
Obviously, the most promising element to win consumer trust in eCommerce websites is showing off the site’s security badges. According to a survey conducted by Actual Insights, 76% of respondents prefer to shop digitally if they recognize the security badge of the website. Brands need to prioritize the security of their consumers.
For this, they can effectively work with credible third-party payment providers or use security seals to lower anxiety about digital payments. In simpler terms, trust seals offer us a third-party certificate of legitimacy. Most consumers don’t feel comfortable making online purchases if they fail to recognize the security logo.
Therefore, adding the assurance of at least one of the popular security logos enhances customers’ confidence in your eCommerce website. In conclusion, adding trust badges will help you increase the credibility and sales of the eCommerce site.
Quick tip on how to establish trust in eCommerce: Install an SSL certificate that proves the security of passed data. Having an SSL certificate ensures customers about their authenticity. Moreover, it also helps you to keep attracting new customers indicating the site’s worthiness.
2. First impressions are important
Look trustworthy with up-to-date and well-executed designs. Consumers tend to make their first impressions of the site in about 50 milliseconds. You need to emphasize the functioning of your website. A good quality eCommerce website design plays an important role in interacting with your customers.
In fact, consumers use many small indicators to subconsciously decide whether they trust your eCommerce store for the purchase or not. Hence, definitely, it’s not the area to skip out on. To meet the expectations of users in terms of their user experience, brands need to focus on eCommerce trends and provide personalized experiences.
Quick tip on how to build trust in eCommerce: You must remember that trends change fast. In case, if it’s been more than a few years since you’ve not redesigned your website, you probably need a fresh look now.
3. Provide a personalized touch
It’s quite simple to share a personalized experience with your customers. For this, you need to clearly display all the related information about your brand. This includes highlighting your brand’s motive and approaches out loud in the market.
Your customers must know the human side of your brand to connect at a personal level. Share inside stories, faces, and videos in the about us section of your website. Many businesses have added a precise “About us” section including their pictures there.
Quick tip on how to build trust in eCommerce: A great way to showcase a personal side includes showing your face to the audience.
4. Make it easy to reach you out
Clearly state your contact information and physical addresses as major proof of your brand’s existence. Your customers must easily find your contact information whenever needed. Your contact information makes it easy for consumers to trust you as an authentic brand. It makes them think that they can actually approach the real person in case of any confusion.
Quick tip on how to establish trust in eCommerce: Also, provide all the possible ways of reaching you out i.e., emails, phone numbers, social handles, chat boxes, etc.
5. Pair up and work with established brands
It makes people feel that if other well-established brands have done business with you, they’ll be safe doing the same. In fact, many big organizations including Amazon implement this to win their consumer trust in eCommerce. Displaying the fortune really helps companies to increase their conversion rate. In addition, make sure to advertise all the pages on which your brand has been featured.
Quick tip on how to establish trust in eCommerce: You can highlight all the collaborated brands’ logos on your website page.
B. Gaining Consumer Trust in eCommerce in the Browsing Stage
Clearly, you have to gain trust the moment you meet shoppers digitally. In this stage, your customer has decided to finally browse your products and services. Make sure he gets all the relevant information related to your items. Here, they not only compare the worthiness of your products. However, also decide if they are confident with your site or not.
If you’re able to win their trust in this stage they will keep adding the items to their carts. And if not, they will quickly abandon and go elsewhere. Below we have discussed major points to take into consideration while earning consumer trust in the browsing stage.
1. Reviews are important
Displaying the ratings and reviews of your customers includes the easiest way in building trust in eCommerce sites. A survey conducted in 2018 reveals that a large majority of consumers read an average of 10 reviews before trusting a particular brand. A visible review posted in the last few days can immensely impact sales to the next vendor.
Telling people about what your client thinks about you adds up so much to the legitimacy of your products. Authentic reviews (including bad ones) indicate the authenticity of your eCommerce store in front of your consumers. Therefore, when developing an eCommerce store, always check if it’s easy to track the reviews or not.
Quick tip on how to build trust in eCommerce: Don’t delete bad reviews but reply to them. Someone who’s been around and has no negative reviews appears to hide back the feedback. Responding to negative comments shows that you care and are honest with your unhappy customers.
2. Social proof
Most of the popular brands utilize this strategy by getting active on social platforms and other niche communities. Consumers have become smart enough to spend a lot of time researching the eCommerce website before purchasing. And the number one source to search for extracting personal touch includes checking their social handles.
Hence, it’s important to display what others have to say about you. It helps brands get engaged in meaningful conversations with their potential audience. Moreover, it helps to boost your brand awareness too. Utilizing the perception of the human masses helps to create a positive image around your brand.
Quick tip on how to establish trust in eCommerce: Actively try to post all the backend stories that cannot be shared on the website. This will help you to connect with your audience at a personal level.
3. Deliver on your product promise
Your customers don’t have the choice of checking the quality in person. Therefore it’s important to describe the item with all the necessary details. Make sure you provide an accurate product description of the items.
Furthermore, consider adding additional product images to give them a clear idea about the product. For instance, shipping prices should be reasonable and honest and should not hit consumers hard with surprise charges.
Quick tip on how to build trust in eCommerce:
- Using 3D pictures of models helps to establish credibility while easing the visitor’s uncertainty about the product.
- Keep the product catalog updated. Make clear product categories to ensure your on-site search performance effectively.
4. Displaying Statistics on Product Adoption
Numbers go a long way to help earn consumer trust in eCommerce. Not only so, but it can also work as a great marketing tool for your brand. Showing off your numbers and analytics to your customers can result in doing wonders for sales.
You can simply publicize the reviews and write up mentions about your brand. It indicates to them how many people actually trust your products. Additionally, this acts as social proof and enables potential customers to trust and sign up on your eCommerce website.
Quick tip on how to build trust in eCommerce: You can display the number of people that have trusted their desired products.
C. Establishing Trust in the Checkout Stage
Now that your visitor has turned into a potential buyer from just a visitor. This part counts the most in offering him/her a reliable experience to trust your brand. Here we have highlighted a few points to consider in retaining potential customers.
1. Efficient checkout page
Your customer would expect detailed cart information including product detail, the number of items, delivery information, etc. Be clear with all the information related to your customers’ orders. Not only so, but you must also ensure that users can easily access your checkout page. It’s your duty to provide them with a full-fledged checkout page with clear information to trust on.
Quick tip on how to build trust in eCommerce: You can enhance their experience by removing all sorts of distractions like unwanted ads that irritate customers easily.
2. Create a smooth customer service experience
Clearly, consumers have plenty of obvious reasons why they don’t want to make a purchase from robots. In case, they have some issues with shipping or want to talk to customer service, they will prefer to speak to an actual human who can understand their problem effectively and not a C-3P0. Good customer service revolves around solving the concerns and needs of the customers during all the stages of online purchase.
Quick tip on how to establish trust in eCommerce: Live chat options help in reducing the conversation gap between the customers and the sellers. Just make sure you hire a reliable team that keeps the promise of 24/7.
3. Be clear with your policies
Showing off your policies loud and clear is an excellent way to show you’re an upfront, customer-first business. A major way to win consumer trust in eCommerce includes the option to easily exchange or return wrong items. In simple terms, it creates a type of environment to win consumer trust in eCommerce stores where they feel secure to shop.
Quick tip on how to establish trust in eCommerce: Display all your website policies in the initial stage of making the purchase. Or make it accessible for your users to read all the policies on the website whenever they want to.
4. Order and shipping information
Customers want to be updated with the estimated delivery date. Important details such as where the item has been shipped from and where it has reached, and more. Providing them with all the related shipping information includes the easiest way to earn their confidence.
Moreover, keeping all the processes transparent and not hiding any cost makes them think you are authentic. Make sure your website supports multiple currencies. Furthermore, offer your customers multiple payment gateways. In this way they can easily choose the option they feel more secure with.
Quick tip on how to establish trust in eCommerce: Also, provide your customers with delivery calculators to easily understand the product information.
D. Retaining Credibility Even After Purchase Phase
Evidently, earning consumer trust in eCommerce involves a never-ending battle. Plus it doesn’t end even after the product’s delivery. You have to retain that credibility that you have promised. This will make your customers keep coming back to you while helping the organization in the long run. Below, we have highlighted some major tips to continue a meaningful relationship with your customers.
1. Collaborate with the right eCommerce development company to scale and grow your business into new markets and geographical regions.
Certainly, you have to evolve between safeguarding consumers, earning consumer trust in eCommerce, and giving good competition to the rivals. Furthermore, collaborating with the right eCommerce development agency solves the major part of the hassle.
Brands need to optimize their functioning to provide reliable consistency among various shopping experiences. You have to ensure that your tech partners are updated with all the existing and updated trends and regulations. This will help you to keep up with the fast-changing ecosystem. In conclusion, this will help to make the platform experience seamless and in building trust in eCommerce.
Quick tip on how to establish trust in eCommerce: Get in touch with the best eCommerce development agency that enables you to grow your reputation as well as your sales.
2. Additional benefits
Providing some additional benefits to the customers helps to improve customer loyalty towards the brand. Not only that but it further aims to attract more returning customers to your site. Even offering some discounts and discretions really helps in making a huge impact in your customer’s hearts. However, giving unreasonably high discounts might create suspicions in your customer’s minds.
Quick tip on how to build trust in eCommerce: Benefits include anything from pay-on-delivery options to easy exchange policies. Furthermore, you can ask for a subscription to retain customers by offering some premium benefits.
3. Never underestimate the power of packaging
Customers really get turned off if they feel their product isn’t rightly packed to protect against damage. On the other hand, great packaging helps in making a good impression in front of consumers. It uplifts the brand’s reputation and includes the first point of contact with customers. In simple terms, we can say the packaging helps to influence consumers’ behavior and promotes the product. In the end, we can also say that it helps the brand to stand different from its rivals.
Quick tip on how to establish trust in eCommerce: The increasing trend towards environment-friendly packaging makes a huge impact in establishing your good reputation.
4. Ask for feedback
Knowledge of the importance of trust in eCommerce helps brands to effectively understand consumers’ behavior. Asking for feedback helps organizations to have detailed insight into the customers’ expectations of them. It indicates that your website actually values your customers’ opinions.
Hence, it results in improving conversion rates and the reputation of the brand in the longer run. Additionally, in this way you can actually involve them in shaping your brand image while building strong relationships.
Quick tip on how to build trust in eCommerce: Feedback in the form of in-app surveys, usability tests, product ratings and reviews, and more. You can even incorporate effective feedback or monitoring tools for collecting reliable customer feedback.
5. Expedient (same-day or next-day) delivery
Implementing this strategy promises customers to deliver faster than regular delivery methods. Hence, allowing customers to purchase perishable items. Many popular eCommerce sites have adopted the emerging trend of quick delivery for their customers.
This has helped a lot in improving customer experience and increasing sales of the website. As customers desire quick and accessible products straight away to their doorsteps. Moreover, this technique helps businesses to decrease shopping cart abandonment.
Quick tip on how to build trust in eCommerce: You can even include expedient delivery for all products to the premium members.
Optimizing Consumer Trust in eCommerce Websites: Final Thoughts!
Developing a great product is not enough to achieve successful heights. You need to gain consumer trust in eCommerce sites too. The importance of trust in eCommerce sites convinces consumers to make a purchase from your eCommerce website. Unless you are a well-known brand with a great reputation, you constantly need to make efforts to convince the desired consumers to trust you.
It might seem like you have to take massive steps to learn how to build trust in eCommerce sites. However, it’s not the case. In fact, the best part about earning consumer trust in eCommerce is that it’s super simple to implement. You just need to follow some basic measures to enhance your reputation in the eyes of your potential customers. Building trust in eCommerce really helps you in the long run.
In the end, we can say that the right eCommerce development company will help you to skyrocket the growth of your eCommerce sites. In fact, most of the biggest and most vital brands collaborate with efficient eCommerce development agencies to scale their businesses and set them up for long-term success. Our experienced guides are here to help you with all the important steps in building trust in eCommerce websites, both big and small, that you encounter every day.
This article provides various methods to add the elements of trust in eCommerce. In addition, the post discusses the importance of trust in eCommerce and how to establish trust in eCommerce.
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