5 Methods to Leverage Trust in Ecommerce

During a recent chat with a close friend, James, he told me about an issue he encountered buying face masks online. As a frontline worker, James decided to search for face masks in bulk as PPE has become such a valuable commodity in recent times. He came across a website selling reasonably-priced masks which seemed legitimate and safe. Upon completing his purchase, he quickly realised that he had bought from a fake website. Fortunately enough his purchase was not of a higher value.

This occurrence inspired us at the ECAI, to compose a blog to highlight and educate people on the importance of trust when buying online. We’ll discuss various measures your business can implement to create certainty among the visitors to your site that you are a real and verified retailer.

What is Trust?

Trust plays such a significant role in ecommerce as more and more retailers are diversifying from brick and mortar premises to online stores. With the rapid growth of companies trading online, there becomes a greater need for transparency for shoppers to ensure their safety. Due to the current pandemic, many shoppers are switching their spending habits to online. They require proof to understand clearly that you are a reliable and trustworthy business. By making small adjustments to improve your businesses trust, you can greatly increase conversions and sales.

Customer trust is hard to gain and easy to lose, especially in today’s ecommerce landscape. Some simple ways to identify a lack of trust in your organisation include:

a) Low conversion rates
b) High Cart abandonment rates
c) Low customer retention rates
d) Low engagement levels

Keeping tabs on these distinct markers is important. Once you identify underperformers, you can begin to optimise your ecommerce store to meet customers tastes.

Methods to Optimise Trust

(1) Security: Having a secure website in today's digital age is vital for effective online retail. Make sure your site possesses a SSL security cert and uses a top-level domain such as .com or .ie(for Irish retailers). Additionally, by displaying verified security certificates and trust marks reinforces a safe shopping experience for the customer. 

Source: https://www.thesslstore.com/

(2) Contact information: Displaying contact information on your site is one of the best measures to take when it comes to trust. Physical addresses and phone numbers indicate that the business is operating out of a transparent premises and has a phone number to connect with. By incorporating effective customer service such as 24/7 chatbots, you will also maintain a strong brand image within your community and increase positive word of mouth from customers, leading to greater conversions.

(3) Social Proof: Social media is key to the success of any online business nowadays. By frequently updating your social media pages with engaging and relevant content creates a sense of social proof to your audience. This proof can present itself in forms like testimonials, product reviews and media mentions. Such user-generated content further develops the trust of your brand. Some of the most popular review forums include Google My Business, TrustPilot and Feefo which assist in mitigating perceived risk when buying online.

(4) People behind the business: A very convincing method to elevate trust is to be personal with your audience. Why not proudly showcase the owners and employees of the company in a simple series of videos. A 30 second clip highlighting your collective passion for the business can go a long way in securing consumers' trust. It conveys that the business is more than just a site and provides livelihoods to many individuals.

(5) Payment Methods: Providing a host of trustworthy payment solutions instills confidence in the buyer that their transaction will be one of a safe manner. Paypal, Stripe, Apple/ Google Pay are some options that you can make available at the checkout process. By offering a choice to consumers they are more likely to be satisfied with your company. In addition to payment solutions, reinforce customer security by displaying that your site is PSD2 ready. You can find out more about PSD2 here on our site; https://www.ecai.ie/ecai/blogdetails/what-is-psd2-

By establishing a secure and credible business can boost your ecommerce growth massively. Trust should be viewed as a long-term business focus where continuous improvements can be made. We hope that your business can take on board some of the practical tips mentioned above to improve your sites performance and ultimately increase trust.