Getting Buyers To Trust You
The e-commerce environment is, in many respects, simply a new geography for the market economy and for this new market economy to take root firmly it has to overcome the same institutional obstacles as the offline economy Key among these is trust.
Physical stores have the advantage over online stores as customers can actually go visit them, talk to the manager and see for themselves what the people and the store looks and feels like.
In the case of online shopping, this is much more difficult. Shoppers have to look for other cues when making their decision.
So why would shoppers go to the web and not to the store? The common reasons would be for selection and price, but the buyer still has to have trust.
I’ve personally spoken to many buyers who buy simply based on price, but there are others who at least have to have some type of comfort zone. The more an e-commerce retailer can do to meet this threshold, the more sales they will enjoy.
Some basic must haves:
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Secure check out
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Phone number
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Address
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Written policies including a friendly return policy
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Trust seals
Ultimately the first sale will be the hardest, once the order is made, ship the product on time as promised. This will gain the customers trust and give you the edge for the next sale. As the Internet grows with even better communication tools like Blogs, reviews, social networks, e-commerce retailers have an ever increasing chance of gaining more trust through word of mouth.
One thing for sure is, the web is commoditizing products, making sellers compete more based on price while trying to differentiate themselves in other ways. It’s a tough battle, so anything they can do to bridge the gap will help sales.
Tags: e-commerce, tips, trust