5 Tips to Gain Customer Trust at the Start of Your ECommerce Career

5 Tips to Gain Customer Trust at the Start of Your ECommerce Career When’s the last time you bought something from a store you didn’t trust? Did it go well enough for you to try that again? If you’re ready to give another random eCommerce store a chance, that’s great! But, you might be much more adventurous than your typical shopper or the audience for your own store. Work to build up trust on your site instead of only getting people willing to take the plunge. Thankfully, there are plenty of efforts you can undertake from day one to build trust and establish relationships. Let’s look at a few of the easier options that you can employ even if you’ve just started creating a Shopify or WooCommerce store earlier this morning. 1. Use multiple photos Start with simple trust-building exercises that are easy to achieve for your eCommerce store. One of the best is simply using multiple photos for the products you sell. Show customers a few angles, different lighting, or even a product in action. Help customers see themselves using and enjoying your products. Follow accessibility best practices to ensure you’re not missing any customers either. From a trust perspective, high-quality photos make it look like you’re selling real products. The clearer they are, the less it’ll look like you’re trying to trick someone. Unsure how to begin? Grab a product and a friend. Have them take a few photos of you with the product and tell the viewers what they’re seeing. This description gives you great copy to go on the product page, further enhancing trust. 2. Keep reviews real We’ve all clicked on an ad for a product only to land on a page that’s full of only five-star reviews or ones that don’t seem to understand the product. You never want to leave the customer thinking, “Oh, this belt was ‘a great time,’ eh. Thanks, fake reviews, I’m out of here.” When launching your eCommerce site, enable reviews from the very beginning. Allow people to post how they actually feel and only do cleanup for things like foul language. Your audience trusts reviews and they want to know what other people think. A shopper is going to trust past customers more than you on how something fits or looks once they get it. Leverage that trust by allowing reviews. This can feel a bit daunting when you’re getting started. How do you get reviews before a sale? If that’s your worry and you’re selling products people can find elsewhere, start with social media. Look for people who’ve shared images or reviews of the products you carry. Grab public reviews and add them to the photo gallery of your site — always properly credit the creator. If you’re selling name brand goods that have a great reputation, turn quotes from major publications or influencers into graphics and add those to your pages too. Read More: 5 Factors To Consider While Choosing An E-commerce Platform 3. Don’t hide fees Nothing kills trust like a surprise fee, especially at the point of checkout. Make any estimated costs transparent in your shopping cart and include sections for everything a customer faces. It’s okay if your cart doesn’t have the final details immediately, but you need to explain that. Something as simple as saying “sales tax and shipping are based on your mailing address” lets the customer know they’ll be paying for these. According to Shopify, 49% to 55% of people will abandon a shopping cart because of extra costs that aren’t obvious. About 17% of people are likely to abandon a cart if pricing is unclear. 4. Offer free shipping Sometimes you need to do a little work to get customers on your side. One easy way is to offer free shipping options. Give people what they want and act as a friend so that you earn some trust and the potential for recurring visits. According to multiple studies on free shipping and customer preferences, the majority of your shoppers want free shipping but are willing to increase the number of items they order to get it. Nearly two-thirds of retailers put limits or requirements on free shipping, so you won’t lose trust just because it requires a $25 minimum. Some 31% are also willing to sign up for an account if they know it gives them free shipping, giving you valuable customer data. Thankfully, free shipping doesn’t have to break your bank. There are a few options you can use to properly price your business so that you’re not losing money on these orders. Some of the most common are: Bake the cost of standard shipping into product pricing Offer free, slow ground shipping with options for people to pay for faster shipping Set a minimum order value for free shipping offers so you’re recouping costs Clearly limit free shipping to certain products so customers see it as a value-add 5. Highlight trust signals and information Shopify data also suggests that 17% will stop their order at checkout if they don’t feel like they can trust your website. Counter this with trust seals and signals. These range from third-party reviews of your site to verification icons. People want to see these so they can feel secure in the checkout process. One report notes that seals from groups like McAfee, PayPal, credit cards, and security firms can increase your conversions by up to 200%. Visitors’ browsers will also warn them that your site is unsafe if you don’t have proper SSL/TLS certificates — often indicated by a closed lock icon in the browser address bar. Typically, your website host or eCommerce software provider will have options for you to get these certificates. Searching for Custom eCommerce Solutions? CONTACT US Another piece of trusted information for your customers is your contact details. People are more likely to trust a company that has an address and contact method, such as a phone number or email. Offering chatbots has become affordable for even the newest eCommerce stores — and customers view this investment as a sign that you’re “real” and reliable. Instead of hiding your details, put them in the footer and make it easy for people to get in touch. Ask for feedback As you’re thinking about all these changes and practices to build trust, keep in mind their unifying requirement: an interactive relationship with your customers. Photos, reviews, trust signals, and more all engage with your audience. To finish building that trust, give them ways to engage with you. Share social accounts, make posts, and ask for feedback on everything you do. Giving people a chance to engage not only helps you build empathy for your audience but will give you a pipeline of data to understand what is and isn’t working.

Kapil Panchal

A passionate Technical writer and an SEO freak working as a Content Development Manager at iFour Technolab, USA. With extensive experience in IT, Services, and Product sectors, I relish writing about technology and love sharing exceptional insights on various platforms. I believe in constant learning and am passionate about being better every day.