4 minute read

What Consumers Look For When They’re On Your Site

When you decide to make a purchase online, what are the things YOU look for before moving forward with the payment? Likely, it is the same as your potential customers.

So ask yourself these 3 questions:

  1. Will your money and personal information be safe and secure?
  2. Will this product or service meet or exceed my expectations?
  3. Will I receive my order in a timely and reliable manner when I make my transaction?

Every consumer wonders these same things when it comes to purchasing from retailers, but more so when it comes to purchasing online through an ecommerce retailer. Online purchases can be more difficult for customers, because of the increasing numbers of fraud, identity theft and hacking incidents.

They are likely going to be most concerned with the question, “Will my money and personal information be safe and secure when go to checkout?”

First-time shoppers are especially concerned, and they are unlikely to buy from a new ecommerce retailer if they don’t feel completely confident that the business is legitimate and that the necessary security precautions are going to be used when processing a payment. When a consumer feels that their information is secure, they are 85% more likely to make a purchase compared to a non secured website.

 

How Can You Reassure Users That They Are Safe & In Good Hands?

A seal of trust is a seal, badge, logo, or icon that is granted by a third-party security company and displayed on a website including, but not limited to, ecommerce sites.

By including a seal of trust on your website, ecommerce retailers can quickly and effectively solve the safety and security issue consumers are concerned about. Website trust seals from reputable companies such as the Better Business Bureau, Norton, McAfee, Volusion SSL, PayPal and others instantly increase the trustworthiness of a site and your brand. Ultimately, leading to an increase in both conversion rates and sales. In fact, statistics show between a 14%-20% increase in conversions after adding a trust seal to their website. Not to mention reducing bounce rates and abandoned carts.

Let’s dig a little deeper and discuss the basics of the seal of trust and the options that ecommerce retailers have.

 

61% of Participants Say They Are Not Completing a Transaction if They Don’t See A Trust Seal

In a survey of online shoppers conducted by Econsultancy, respondents said that the single most important factor that they considered when deciding whether or not to complete a transaction was the presence of a trust seal.

This seal verifies the safety and security of the transaction process – i.e., when people use their credit card – it confirms the reputation of the site. Retailers can earn a seal of trust by using a secure sockets layer (SSL). An SSL certificate encrypts important information – like a customer’s credit card information – that travels over the internet, this makes sure that hackers can’t read it if they happen to get their hands on it. Recently, Google’s browser Chrome has been warning users of non-SSL sites insecurities.

 

Which Website Trust Seals Do Customers Trust The Most?

Of the multiple website trust seals out there, some get higher rankings among consumers than others. This does not mean the lower ranking seals are of any less importance of verification, it is simply to show the level of significance, from the consumer perspective, when obtaining an accredited seal of trust. A survey done by Baymard shows which badges give the best sense of trust.

Here are the results:

website trust seals chart

Photo credit: Baymard Institute

As it shows in this survey, Norton Secured has been the consumers’ favorite seal of trust in many of related surveys. This doesn’t mean that Norton Secured is the most trusted or secured seal badge on the web, it just means that it is ranked the highest in terms of customer’s perceived security, which is extremely important to ecommerce retailers. The perceived security has proven to be even more valuable than recommendations when deciding whether or not to buy.

 

6 Steps To Sealing The Deal & Improving Ecommerce Sales

Adding a trust seal to your website, especially on the checkout page of your ecommerce site, can drastically increase your purchases rates. Proudly displaying the safety and security measures these seal stands for allows you to build a foundation of trust and integrity that is essential in maintaining a successful online business. Customers are looking for reputable businesses when deciding to make purchase decisions.

Ecommerce retailer can seal the deal and convince more first-time customers to become repeat customers at their online store by:

  1. Adding the appropriate trust seal.
  2. Installing an SSL certificate.
  3. Updating your website from HTTP to HTTPS and setting up the proper 301 redirect via an htaccess file.
  4. Putting verbiage on the website that highlights your dedication to solve these security issues.
  5. Describing the steps you have taken to ensure their data safety.
  6. Optimizing the checkout page, safeguarding that the UX design and payment process is streamlined.

Displaying the seal of trust on your website, ensures the customer will feel comfortable with the protection, safety and security of their information, especially when making a purchase. In return, this will allow you to become a more credible and trustworthy brand to your audience, and gives you a higher rate of converting your viewers into actual customers.

We at Tag Marketing are here to help your business reach its goals no matter if you sell products or services on your ecommerce site. We have several offices in Illinois including Schiller Park, Chicago, Bartlett, Brookfield, South Elgin and Roselle.

 

Long-Term eCommerce Success Starts Here

 

Website trust seals and badges build trust, but how to you generate more traffic and leads? Checkout our Beginner’s Guide to Lead Generation. We reveal the top lead generation channels you should be using, how to optimize your content for your audience, best practices when it comes to social media, helpful tools and much more.