Winning the trust of customers is an accomplishment for business, and in the case of eCommerce business, it matters even more. Why? Because your customers are not directly engaging with your business but through a digital space. In the case of a physical store, customers can experience and inspect the product themself, come back to you if the product is unsatisfactory in any regard, and return it quickly. While online stores provide much convenience, missing such aspects makes it hard for webstore businesses to attain customers' trust. However, some factors make a webstore more trustworthy than others; let’s see what those are.
Personal experience
What makes any webstore the most trustworthy for any customer is their experience purchasing from the webstore; if you have a good experience with any business, you’re likely to go back and buy from them again. This holds more for ecommerce than other businesses because people are more hesitant to try new ecommerce stores. The average retention rate for ecommerce is between 30%-40%, and good webstores have an even better rate. Furthermore, successive good experiences build customers’ trust and are linked with an increase in their average cart value, generating more profit for you. Conversely, if customers have a bad experience shopping with you, they’re unlikely to make a future purchase with you.
Review & rating
You may have good experience with a webstore, but if you’re buying a product that you have never tried experiences of others can help. Including reviews & ratings of products on your webstore builds a sense of community among your customers; reading others' experiences gives you an idea of what to expect from products and helps them make better decisions by clearing their doubts that serve as buying resistance. Furthermore, the rating gives a quick glimpse into the popular opinion of the products helping customers make product comparisons. In short, reviews & ratings provide social proof for the product, which is one crucial factor in buying decisions.
Policies
Policies are crucial for setting out rules on how your business function. Good webstores have customer-centric policies that provide a sense of comfort & confidence to customers when purchasing. Some of the policies that make the webstore trustworthy are:
Free shipping
Flexible return & refund policy
Free support services
Warranty
Price matching policy
Website presentation
How the environment influences the senses play a significant role in customers’ buying decision. However, since webstore exist in a digital space, you have limited control over how you create favorable conditions for the customers – the onus is on website presentation. Good ecommerce stores give special attention to this aspect and design their stores that portray professionalism and highlight information needed to clear doubt in customers’ minds. Some characteristics of these websites include:
An intuitive and user-friendly interface featuring proper color schemes, font styles & sizes, navigation links, and consistent design structure across the website.
These websites provide much-needed information to gain customers’ trust like details about the company, location, contact details, return & refund policies, FAQ page, and estimated shipping times. Moreover, they provide links to their social media pages suggesting their acceptance by the internet community.
Since customers can’t physically asses your products online, their buying behavior is highly dependent on how you portray your products. Professional ecommerce sites ensure their product pictures are of high quality, convey the necessary information about the product and cover all angles. Moreover, many webstores include product videos in use that demonstrate its usability.
Conclusion
Just like any relationship business, relations are built on trust. Therefore, ecommerce businesses must take measures to gain customers’ trust. However, it cannot be attained without effort but with a focus on how customers perceive your webstore and how their perception aligns with reality.
The x2x team has experience in providing ecommerce solutions for many years; if you need to set up an ecommerce store, the team can help you. Furthermore, the x2x team can also integrate your webstore with other business solutions like ERPs or POS. Contact the x2x team for a free demo or any query.