Creating Trust in E-Commerce

The act of getting someone to buy a product or service that they cannot see or feel beforehand, from a person that they do not know, and getting them to give up intensely personal information during the process, requires a leap of trust of the highest magnitude.

Those online retailers who have managed to build that bridge of trust will be successful while those who have not will ultimately experience business failure.

Implied Trust

Certain e-commerce merchants enjoy a high degree of implied or pre-existing trust due to their long history of satisfactory performance and presence in the Bricks and Mortar environment. A customer is much more likely to place an order on the web site of a well known retailer such as Tesco or John Lewis than they are at Joe's Clothing Depot. This doesn't mean that Joe is out of luck, but it does mean that he has an even higher standard that he will have to maintain in order to create an aura of trust.

Covering the Basics

There are actually two types of "basics" that need to be addressed in the process of creating trust. The first type of trust is the "merchant reliability and confidence" factor and the second is the "technical trust" factor.

Establishing Merchant Reliability

In order to create the impression of merchant reliability, the e-tailer needs to put themselves on the same level of professionalism as the major sites do. One way to do this is to join a trade association, or independent consumer protection programme, such as ISIS. Once becoming a member you need to display the logo of these associations so that your customers know that you belong.

The purpose is to assure the consumer that some outside agency monitors the performance of the merchant and that the merchant has redress in the event that there is a problem which is not handled to their satisfaction.

Another trust-building step is to display a physical address and telephone number. Despite this now being a legal requirement in the UK, many small e-commerce sites simply list an email address for contact purposes. This creates the impression of a "fly-by-night" operation that may not be around when problems arise.

People are also concerned with their privacy and how you will handle their personal and Credit Card data. You are advised to develop a privacy statement that covers these points and link to it form every page in your web site. Privacy statements do not have to be dull and boring. In fact, the easier a statement is to read the more likely the chances are of it building trust. Here is an example of an outstanding Privacy Statement that covers all of the basics yet is actually fun to read: http://www.frugalboys.com/eatfree/privacy.php

Customers want to know what your return and shipping policies are as well as any warrantee or guarantee information. Make sure that you create a policies page and link it from every page on your site as well.

The more information that you reveal, and the more assurances of a safe and rewarding experience you provide, the better the chances are that a sale will be completed.

Building Technical Trust

Savvy shoppers are going to look for the browser symbol that indicates a secure Transaction in progress whenever they are asked to give up personal or financial data. You need to make sure that all information collection routines are hosted on secure pages that begin with https:// instead of http://. In order to do this you will need to either have a secure certificate of your own installed on your domain, or you may be allowed to piggyback on your web host's certificate. In either case, your web hosting provider can provide you with the details.

Make sure that all of your scripts function correctly and that the customer is never dumped off at a "404 page not found" location anytime during their visit or the ordering process.

Have a summary page that gives the customer a chance to review their order, and correct any mistakes, before you start the final checkout sequence.

Once the Transaction is completed make sure that a Thank You page is displayed and that this page reminds the user when and how they will receive their product or service.

No trust = No sales

Establishing trust is vital to your business process. Although the steps in this article are relatively easy to follow, many merchants will not bother. After their business ultimately fails they will join the legions of e-commerce wannabees who regularly cry "e-Commerce is dead". E-commerce is alive and well and can only grow from here. It's up to you to thrive and survive. Creating trust is one of the first steps. Make sure that you do it!

- 14th September 2004

This is an exclusive MerchantSite.co.uk article. Permission is not given to reproduce this article in part of full in any form. If you see this article elsewhere please let us know.