5 Ways to Make Your eCommerce Store Trustworthy

Though online shopping is becoming increasingly common, people are wary because of the heightened risk of fraud. A visitor to your website will just take a few seconds to decide if they trust your site or not. You don’t have a lot of time to earn trust – it has to be obvious to the visitor immediately. Here are 5 effective strategies that can help you do just that.

1. HTTPS Encryption

This refers to configuring your web pages with SSL certification; what this does is, it adds an additional level of security with the help of encryption technology. When pages are encrypted, the data exchange that takes place between the server and user’s browser cannot be hijacked, hacked, or copied. HTTPS encryption is an absolute must for pages where user credentials are entered or displayed, and the threat of exposure is maximum – like login, checkout, payment, and shipping pages; however, implementing SSL encryption throughout the site will help build tremendous trust. A page with HTTPS encryption has a green address bar and displays a padlock to convey that it is a secure page. This goes a long way in gaining consumer trust; it tells them that you have taken the requisite steps to safeguard your customers’ information, and that their financial information cannot be misused.

2. Share the human side of your business

People like to deal with other people, and not brands – faceless entities; after all, the brand objective is to make money. But people, even visitors to your website, are open to trusting you as a human being. To help shake off this inherent distrust, one of the best things you can do is talk about yourself. Introduce yourself, tell them your story – your struggles and successes in this journey; people will warm up to you. That is why your ‘About Us’ page is very important. Direct the visitor’s attention to yourself rather than just your products and lay the foundation of trust. Knowing you better also adds authenticity and credibility to your brand.

3. Be Socially Active

You cannot ignore the power of social media today. People air their opinions and grievances about brands, products, services and people on various social networking websites. Responding to such feedback on your pages quickly and professionally will help you gain customer trust to a huge extent. Businesses that are socially active enjoy more trust, because today’s consumer expects service from these channels in addition to the traditional modes. Again, how many likes or followers your brand has is social proof of your popularity – the more the merrier! A new customer will feel more inclined to interact with you and become a customer when they say that thousands of people are already engaging with your brand.

4. Reviews and Testimonials

Make sure to display product reviews and testimonials by previous customers on your website as well as social media networks. When people see how useful or great other people found your products and services, they will be more likely to purchase. They find it easier to believe what other buyers say about your products, than what you say yourself – and for good reason. Also, most people hesitate to be the first buyers of a product; they are more comfortable when they see that others have purchased and liked it.

5. Be Transparent

This transparency should of course be the most visible before checkout – make sure you disclose all the costs involved, like shipping, insurance, taxes, and so on, so that your customer does not get a rude shock on the payment page. Hidden charges never did anything good. You may think that you can entice a customer with a lower price, and when they are hooked, spring the extra cost at the last minute. Well, they can always stop the purchase at that point, and all your efforts would come to naught. Make it easy for your customers to contact you too – display your email id, phone number and physical address, and the location of your brick and mortar store if you have one.