VISITORS WON’T BUY THINGS FROM YOU or give you contact information if they don’t trust you.
Before they buy, visitors need to feel secure and to trust sellers. Brand recognition lends credibility for larger companies, but many online stores do not have the luxury of having a recognizable name. Similar issues apply offline: you’re likely to lose visitors if your storefront looks sloppy or if your business is in a bad area of town. Every visitor to your online or offline store comes to you with specific intimidations and fears. They don’t want to be cheated or sold at; they want to have an enjoyable and simple shopping or browsing experience.
As you are able to successfully establish trust with your customers, you will build their confidence with your company. The more confidence a customer has in your store, the more likely she will purchase from you, often coming back for more or even recommending you to others. Although a conversion from a first-time customer is important, repeat customers are more valuable. The conversion value is multiplied if you are able to gain customer loyalty.
Gaining skeptical buyers’ trust is difficult, especially when you’re trying to sell something expensive. The level of skepticism generally increases as the price increases. Stores that sell jewelry online report a less than 0.5% average conversion rate. Does that number reflect only the lack of trust a visitor may have? Not necessarily, but trust plays an important role when guiding the user’s decision.
Consider buying a piece of expensive jewelry from an online store. You cannot see the ring up close, touch it, examine it, or try it on. You may wonder if the site is trustworthy and whether the company is honest and will deliver the item in a timely manner. How confident would you feel about the jewelry? Certainty about what you are buying would be much easier at an offline store. Of course, it is not impossible, and many online stores selling high-priced items are able to establish enough confidence with their visitors to convert.
Establishing trust with your visitors takes four steps. As you read about these steps, though, remember that this all unfolds in a matter of seconds online.
They can’t trust you before they know you.
This stage is all about driving traffic to your site through different sources and media (search engine optimization or SEO, paid advertising, banner ads, etc.). The awareness stage is about visibility and getting people to find you. You can achieve visibility through marketing and advertising, but be careful: users may trust you less if they feel they arrived at your site deceitfully.
When a visitor first lands on your site, you have mere seconds to convince him to stay, and that’s when the knowledge stage begins. You must demonstrate your value proposition during this stage. Now that visitors are aware of you, it’s a matter of convincing them that you offer a unique value, unmatched anywhere else.
As visitors get to know your business, they will decide whether to purchase from you. During the liking stage, you should address visitors’ questions, such as “Do I know enough about what they do or have to offer?” and “Can’t I go to a more well-known, established name and get these products or services?” If you succeed in moving visitors through the liking stage, you’ve gained them as customers, at least once.
Once visitors have purchased from you, it’s important to ensure that they have a wonderful experience. Trust happens when users complete the shopping experience and successfully receive their product. Up to the point of having the product in their hands, visitors are still anxious about the purchase they just made. A good experience includes receiving the shipment in a timely manner, ensuring that the product is in pristine condition, and, if necessary, making an exchange or return as seamless as possible.