Practical Ways To Instil Trust Factor In Customers in eCommerce development

Summary: Looking at the increasing level of difficulties in gaining trust of people over online, this article describes some efficacious strategies of getting people’s trust for eCommerce sites.

While eCommerce sector functions primarily on the basis of trust, customers trust those stores that sell genuine products and let customers pay for their purchases promptly.  Buying things from brick-and-mortar stores is immensely different from buying things from online stores. There are many individual clues that creates trust in buyers in case of physical stores like friendly store owner, large spacious store, professional signage, good storefront and sufficient product stock. However,online shopping is vastly a different experience where customers do not have the idea of the seller or salesperson behind the website. So, they seek for other factors that implants a sense of protection and reliability. Here the list of some insanely practical ways for websites indulged in eCommerce to get trust of the people and maximise rate of conversions.

1.Professional outlook of the website

While it doesn’t matter always whether the content of the website is compelling enough, what

matters is the website appearance or its outlook. Any site that reminds one of the Geocities sites of 1990s, will definitely make customers concerned about the reliability of the site. A website that looks unprofessional and too simple is most likely to loose out a large section of visitors who look for aesthetically good and sophisticated website with high-definition graphics, simple and user-friendly navigation.

2. Transparency is the key

In case of online businesses where there is absolutely zero physical presence, the only way to connect the site with customers is fostering transparency and letting them know how and who are actually behind the functioning of the site. One major way for bringing transparency in a website is operating a social page or community page on the digital medium. Also, brand humanisation elements, like the images of  owner, admin head or any team member in the about us section further inspire trust in the customers.

3. Broken links should be fixed

A very usual mistake made by many eCommerce sites and lead to the loss of potential customers is the presence of broken links. It implies the unprofessionalism of the website and that the company has failed in paying attention to every detailing. Further, it scares them out the most while making  payments for their purchases and they might be fearful of failed transactions. That is why, site owners are recommended to audit the site frequently for any broken links and fix them to offer a seamless experience to the visitors.

4. Secured checkout

Even after  filling the cart with items, the final decision to purchase or not depends on one final detail on the site, which is the security of transaction at the checkout stage. It is essential to ensure that the third-party vendor integrated into the site for the payments process is reliable and uses authenticated security technologies. PayPal or Stripe are such renowned payment gateways that uses proper encryption technology.

These are four most proven measures to win the trust of customers in online businesses. Once trust is established, customers loyalty and attachment to the brand follows automatically. Thus, each eCommerce business is recommended to pay utmost attention on driving trust factors on their site.  

Jonathan is a technology geek and expert eCommerce developer at PHPProgrammers, a prominent company for eCommerce and Magento development in Australia, who is passionate about exploring different ways on enhancing security in online businesses.