5 Ways To Earn Customer Trust On eCommerce Websites
With a new eCommerce store it can be difficult to gain trust. Trust is what drives purchases, makes customers coming back for more and improves loyalty.
Here is a lit of top e-commerce website designers that can help you achieve that goal.
You don’t have any customers and that’s reflected in the sheer lack of internal product reviews on your site unless you go to the extent of posting fake reviews and shooting yourself in the foot.
Shoppers search for reviews from past customers to understand if the product is as described.
Why?
Because they trust online reviews as much as they trust product recommendations.
Zero reviews is tantamount to zero credibility.
So what do you do when the store’s brand new, there’s no social proof courtesy of reviews or testimonials? Customers have no reason to buy from you because they have no reason to trust you. The classic chicken and egg scenario.
Simple— give them a reason to trust you.
How?
In this post, I will be covering 5 different ways by which you can make your website appear trustworthy.
Let’s get started
Use Content Creatively
Content marketing for an eCommerce site can do wonders by helping you connect with prospective customers. The thing is, customers are hunting for a reason to trust you and blog makes the brand personable, approachable and great.
Regular blogging can also make you appear pretty invested in the upkeep of your site, interested in consumer problems and so on.
Scotts Menswear is one brand that’s pretty involved in content marketing. The topics usually covered are sports, films, men’s fashion and wear targeting the biggest demographic that visits the site.
The keywords they rank with the blog alone possibly bring a substantial amount to their pockets.
Here’s another example.
GREATS is a sneaker site whose spin on product descriptions offers you real insights regarding sneaker sizes and fit.
Instead of relying on a cloud of text to convey size, they have used a variety of symbols to that end.
The unique style omits the need for large images which often tend to slow down the speed with which pages load.
The product pages use the remaining space to tell a great story with content that’s useful for would be customers The product description is filled with helpful advice.
Content marketing done in this manner showcases subject matter expertise and establishes you as an authority in your field.
Customers now feel like purchasing because they’ve got another element they can trust your authority as someone who knows his way around.
The more you invest time and funds into content marketing the better will be the returns. People start finding your site more and more through search engines and the stories help mould a voice that’s uniquely yours helping your case.
But beware that the right kind of content marketing isn’t just boatloads of textual content. It can be image driven. It can even use music like Sole Bicycles did with their blog. They replaced blogposts about cycles with mixtapes that cyclers loved listening to when biking. This simple gesture turned them into a marketing behemoth helping them turn millions in revenue—transforming them from a drowning to an overnight success.
Humanize the brand
By informing your customers that you’re no different than them you instantly create a rapport that could translate to sales.
Airbnb has an incredible Instagram strategy that you will not be able to recognize at one glance.You will find the feed filled with photos and scenery from all over the world and images of homes from every country.
But you will be wrong to think they’re sourcing all photos from some shutter-bug on monthly retainer. The truth is that the photos are sent by their own customers taking in the beauty of the places they travelled to and stayed at.
This acts as social proof and this and more such examples attract people to try Airbnb.
The engagement is of the charts with each post receiving anything between 10k to 30k likes with the stream of comments never stops.
The conversations that flow help the brand connect with people. It takes a lot of effort for someone to engage on social media and that too with a brand. People go past this resistance to drop comments and valuable responses in return make them feel it was worth their while.
Presently they have over 3.1 million followers on their Instagram account.
Include a security badge
With the recent legislation on GDPR and similar laws there’s no doubt to the fact that security online is top priority.
Hacking credit card details is the norm these days. In a world rife with such incidents how do you ensure that your customers trust you.
Adding a trust badge can go a long way in helping boost site security and relieving minds of fear.
In a study by the Baymard Institute, the research firm found that the most trusted security badge on the internet was Norton’s.
Badges are available from companies like Norton, McAfee and others and you can employ those on your site and stay protected.
Have A Great Web Design
Dr Brent Coker in his research found that we drag our behaviors across domains. Just like we like and trust beautiful people more, we trust and like beautiful websites.
People are quick to evaluate a site with its visual elements alone and that happens in mere seconds. Layout typography images all play a role in this.
Great web design revolves around cohesively presenting each element after the other to make a whole that makes sense and is harmonious. A website choke full of cheesy stock photos and ugliness everywhere isn’t going to achieve that.
Instead stick to using real photos from real people. Have a dedicated testimonial page that features quotes and photos of actual customers instead of models.
Yellow Leaf Hammocks, a company that sources handwoven artisan hammocks exclusively relies on its employees to tell their story.
Have an excellent return policy
If you’re assured that your action can be reverted that make you much more confident about making that decision right?
Same goes for customers.
An iron-clad free return policy is what you need to make prospects feel confident about turning into customers.
Why?
There’s ample research indicating that 67% of customers will first check the return policy on the website prior to purchasing from you. A great majority—58% of shoppers aren’t satisfied with the return policy on sites they shop from. A good returns policy shows that you abide by rules and regulations, are trustworthy and that you actually care about your customer. And millennials who comprise the lion’s share of online buyers do return a lot of items.
There could be losses in the short-term but in the long term you’re looking at buyers who come back again. Returning customers are the lifeblood of any successful eStore.
Conclusion
What do you think of the suggestions in the post to engender trust on your eCommerce site even when you have no reputation, no reviews and hardly any traffic?
Do let us know in the comments below.
Author bio: George Mathew started ThinkingNe to share cutting edge insight into Conversion Rate optimization and marketing techniques. Get started with one of his blogposts today.
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