These 10 tips will help you provide a secure shopping experience and build the kind of shop your customers will trust immediately.
1. Use a professional shop design
The design of your shop is the first thing visitors notice. It not only includes the look and feel of the shop, but also its usability. Start by choosing a layout that is visually appealing and professional-looking.
It’s also important to make sure that your users can easily navigate your site and quickly find what they are looking for. The following points will help you make your store even more trustworthy:
Display the content in a consistent, user-friendly way
Use a clear, easy-to-understand layout
Use logical category headings and make the shop simple for users to navigate
Ensure that all text is 100% free of typos
Use high-quality images
Ensure that pages can load quickly
It’s also important that your shop’s design is optimised for viewing on a mobile device. And if you’re selling to cross-border customers, make sure your content and prices are always localised to the right languages and currencies.
2. Offer perfect product pages
In addition to your homepage, your product pages are critical to building customers’ trust. Ideally, your product pages should answer all your customers’ important questions, such as:
How will this product solve my problem?
Is it the right size/dimensions?
Is it made using high-quality materials?
There are a few must-haves that every product page should include:
Detailed product descriptions, divided into sections to make them easy to read
A wide range of product photos taken from different angles and distances
Information about product availability (is the item in stock?)
Information about shipping costs, including your returns policy
Recent product reviews
If you’re looking for industry-specific tips to improve your product pages, be sure to check out our complete industry-specific guide to boosting conversion.
3. Be transparent and accessible
If you want your customers to see your business as honest and serious, make sure you communicate your brand, values and purpose to them. Many visitors will click over to your ‘About us’ page to learn the personal story behind your products. Ensure you communicate what your brand stands for and which important topics (such as sustainability) are important to you. Showing that you share your customers’ values is a fantastic way to create even greater trust in your online shop.
Customer support is another crucial factor for building trust. Answering questions quickly and offering professional support shows your customers that you are a serious online business. This means your website must include a contact page that lists all the important contact information about your company:
Phone number
Email address (ideally containing the domain name of your website)
Physical shop locations (if any)
An option to contact or chat with customer support online
4. Showcase customer satisfaction
Another key factor for making your online shop trustworthy is ‘social proof’. This involves publishing product ratings and reviews written by existing customers. Their opinions give potential customers a clearer view of whether they can trust your shop.
Reviews are also a relevant source of information that help potential customers decide whether they want to buy from your shop. They contain useful details, such as…
whether the product description is accurate
how the product fits
how quickly the order was delivered
how customer support responded to any issues
Your shop’s social media presence is equally important for building trust. Customers expect trustworthy businesses to regularly interact with the public on Instagram and other popular platforms. What you post—and how often—can have as much of an influence on your trustworthiness as your ratings on sites like Trustpilot.
5. Guarantee data security
If you want to see how serious an online shop is, look at how they handle (and communicate about) data security. It’s important to include the following security-related items on your website:
Detailed information about the cookies your site uses, including an opt-out feature
A GDPR-compliant privacy policy (if you sell to EU customers)
A professional-looking ‘Contact’ page, including your company’s VAT ID and trade registry information
Web security measures, including HTTPS encryption
You should also abide by the principle of data minimisation. That means you only collect the information you need to process and ship the customer’s order. It’s often smart to allow customers to place an order using a guest account instead of requiring them to create a user account. This gives first-time users a chance to test your site. Once you have earned their trust, they are more likely to create a user account when they place future orders.
6. Ensure payment security
Payment security is absolutely essential for building trust with your customers. That’s why you must offer secure payment methods and comply with the highest payment security standards. These include:
PCI DSS standards for credit card payments
Two-factor authentication
Security certificates and trustmarks are more must-haves for demonstrating your shop’s payment security standards.
7. Display consumer trustmarks and certificates
Trustmarks and certificates help boost your customers’ confidence. These emblems show customers that your shop has been verified and approved by independent auditors. And they have been proven to have a positive influence on customer behaviour.
E-commerce certificates can be used to verify the quality of many aspects of your online shop. The table below lists some of the most important quality seals, as well as the standards used to issue them.
8. Offer customer-friendly payment methods
The payment methods you offer in your shop have a major influence on consumer trust. It’s essential that you offer your customers a selection of payment methods. Increasingly, online consumers also expect the option to ‘buy now, pay later’.
However, payment in advance is less risky for you as a retailer. That’s why it’s important to offer well-known, trusted payment options. This reassures your customers that they will be able to receive a full refund if they don’t receive their order or if they decide to return it (in line with your policy).
If you are selling across national borders, also be sure to offer the payment methods that are most popular in your customers’ countries.
9. Make transactions simple and transparent
To maximise customer trust, it’s important that you communicate clearly with them, every step of the way. For example, it’s helpful to offer potential customers who are browsing your shop useful FAQs that answer all their questions.
Also make sure that your ordering process is easy to navigate. The last thing you want to do is surprise the customer with unexpected information during checkout—especially related to the price. When a customer is confronted with a higher price than they expected, they may doubt the legitimacy of your shop. The same applies if you are not transparent about your shipping prices before the customer starts the checkout process. That’s why it’s important to:
display your shipping costs as early as possible
notify the customer that customs fees may apply to international shipments
offer the option to enter discount codes early in the checkout process
make the shopping cart simple to use and navigate
include a link to your contact page in case the customer needs help
After a customer has placed an order, you should send them regular email notifications to keep them up to date on the order’s status. For example, send an email when:
the order is received
the order is shipped
the order is split into multiple shipments
the customer returns an item
10. Use advertising in moderation
Marketing is a valuable tool for reaching your target group and raising awareness about your online shop. It can also help to build trust. However, the look of your advertising is not the only important factor; the frequency of customer contact really matters. Shops that bombard customers with too many ads seem less trustworthy.
The same applies to how often you send your newsletter. If customers receive emails from you too often, they’re more likely to perceive your emails as spam. Even if customers voluntarily sign up to receive your newsletter, it’s important not to abuse their trust by flooding their inboxes with marketing messages. When it comes to trustworthy advertising for your online shop, remember the golden rule: quality instead of quantity.
