When eCommerce consumers are shopping and making a decision on who to purchase from, one important factor in their buying decision is whether they feel they can trust a company. As an eCommerce business, it is important that you are always working towards building trust with online shoppers. Building or conveying trust with consumers is especially important since eCommerce does not provide the face-to-face interaction that traditional retail provides. So let's talk about some ways that you can inspire eCommerce customers to trust your eCommerce business and its products and help you grow into a successful eCommerce business.
Make eCommerce Consumers Your Biggest Brand Advocates
5 Tips for Building Trust as an eCommerce Business
- Develop social proof. Find ways to encourage people to tweet or post your products on their social media is a fantastic and low-cost (or even free) way to show online shoppers that your product is legit.
- Display customer reviews. And make them easily accessible to potential customers. Reviews from purchasers is one of the first thing potential customers will look for when deciding whether to make a purchase from your Shopify or Etsy store.
- Offer easy return processes. This reduces an eCommerce consumers' perceived risk of making a purchase. Online consumers will bounce to another merchant so fast it will make your head spin if they get the slightest sense that your returns process is difficult or burdensome. Providing a satisfaction guarantee and a simple returns process is a surefire way to increase sales to wary consumers.
- Make it easy for customers to contact your eCommerce business. This means having an email address to field customer inquiries, or a phone number, as well as getting your business listed with Google and having a verifiable address. The more transparency and ease of contact you provide makes eCommerce consumers trust you and your online business more and more.
- Provide a detailed “About Us” page on your website to help customers get to know your company. This is about the closest you can come to giving eCom consumers that face-to-face feeling that traditional retail gives. It lets the online purchaser feel like they know you a little better, which corresponds to the level of trust they feel for your company.
Relationship Building Leads to Long-Term Supporters of your eCommerce Business
Consumers have so, so many options to choose from when making a purchase from an eCommerce business. Which makes it extra important that you develop a relationship and level of trust with them to help set you and your company apart from the competition. If you can effectively build trust with your customers, this will help you sell more and create brand loyalty for repeat customers and help you grow into a more profitable online store. Finding multiple ways through your branding, consumer interactions, and customer service processes to position yourself as a trustworthy eCommerce company will pay you long-term dividends, and create lifelong brand advocates.
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