Trust signals in an ecommerce site are really important. It’s trust that is the final contribution to the buying thought process. So, it can be extremely important to get these trust signals correct as it lays the foundation for more successful conversions.
In this article we’re going to discuss why trust in ecommerce is important and some tips on how to improve your trust signals on site.

Why is trust important on an ecommerce store?

According to a study in 2006 by Taylor Nelson Sofres, customers will abandon 70% of online transactions due to a lack of trust. Annually this leads to a loss of $1.9b. That’s a huge drop off in the sales funnel, if you can optimise this section of the sales process then you’ll increase conversions.
This lack of trust can easily be improved by squashing some common doubts the customer may have. By optimising and focussing on your trust scores you’ll improve your eCommerce conversion rate.

How to Improve Trust in eCommerce

We know that trust is important and that it can increase your conversion rates. There are some common and easy tactics to implement to increase your trust online. To start any basic CRO strategy you have a look through your site and think to yourself, “would I buy from this store?”. It can be difficult to stand back from your business and look from the outside, so here are some features your site should have.

Reviews

Real reviews are really important to not only trust signals, but also for your company too. Using reviews can help you find pain points in your business, whether it’s shipping or sizing. But customers also use reviews in order to see honest feedback about your product or service.
Up to 92% of consumers will read online reviews and 80% of consumers said that they trust real reviews as much as a personal recommendation. That’s a lot of trust! Adding reviews to your site may be the single most important thing you do to build consumer trust.

Use some automated email marketing flows to encourage customers to write reviews for your site. It’s important you get as many reviews as possible, because on average, customers will read 10 reviews before making a purchasing decision. Using 3rd party review systems, such as Yotpo or TrustPilot will instill even more trust. Using verified review platforms means that the user knows that the customer reviews are real.

Reviews can actually help the performance of your site in search engines. By adding review rich snippets to your eCommerce site, the user can see an overview of your reviews before they even visit your site. This can be very powerful, because the user is visiting your site already less sceptical than your competitor that doesn’t have rich snippet reviews.

UGC- User Generated Content Builds Trust

User generated content is social proof that will drive customers to your eCommerce website. Getting your loyal customers to post images of your products on social media and tagging you in it will help drive more visitors to your site. But these new visitors are coming to your site on the back of a recommendation from a friend, so the trust seals are already in place.

You can improve that customer trust further by adding UGC blocks on the product pages of your site. This adds a social proof element to your product page. Social proof shows that your product is real and that the quality of the product is real. This can help remove doubt and grow trust in your brand.

Blogs

The benefits of having a blog on your site range from SEO to creating content for social channels. But blogs can also improve your trust scores. If you’re creating informative, factually-correct and entertaining blogs, the user will begin to trust you and your site even more.
The goal of having a blog is to show to your customers that you know what you’re talking about and you can provide them with some useful information. Do this well and the customer is going to trust you making a purchase more likely.

Contact and Communication

One of the reasons that customers are often dubious about shopping online, is that the website is fake and/or a scam. Having a physical address, or a landline can help squash those fears of your site not being legit. Consider using a live chat integration, this not only shows that there are real people behind the company it also offers great customer service.

Social Platform Links

Social media can be invaluable for some eCommerce businesses. It’s their main source of traffic and customers. Show your social media links not just via UGC integrations but also create share icons.
Adding share icons to your product page will let people post your product quickly to their followers, which creates a “word of mouth” recommendation. Using share counters to show many times people have shared a particular product may help convince others to share it even further.

SSL Certificates and Security

Security is paramount in eCommerce, you need to be able to show that you’re 100% compliant. The customer needs to know that if they hand over their credit card details to you, you will do everything you possibly can to keep them safe. Thankfully, if you have a site with Shopify or Shopify Plus, you can relax. Because of the way Shopify is built your eCommerce store is fully compliant with data handling and storage.

Your Shopify site is also served with an SSL certificate. This certificate shows a green padlock in most browsers, letting the user know that data is encrypted and protected. In fact some browsers will actually warn a user if the site doesn’t have an SSL certificate.

Payments

Offering payments that are recognisable will help improve your trust score. Using payment providers such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Klarna and other house-hold payment gateways will help your customers trust the checkout process.

Use Proposition Drivers to Build Your Trust

Proposition drivers are used throughout the site and they let your users know about these trust scores. Got a 5/5 on a review site? Shout about it. Proposition drivers show that you’re trustworthy, let’s you show off your unique offering and let’s you provide upstream marketing opportunities.
Follow the tips outlined above to grow your trust scores, and then shout about them in your prop drivers. If you need some help to increase your online trustworthiness then get in touch, we’d be happy to help.