Hello and Welcome back to the Game of Selling Blog…
Today the world knows the E-Commerce market has rapidly been growing in India, year-on-year growth for online sales grew 12%+ last year. But still we still lack in many ways compared to developed nations.
One of the most if not the most important reason behind this is the audience in India still lacks trust in online shopping. Well this happens many times, “while we try to climb up on the mountain we forget to study the ground”. And trust is basically the ground, the foundation of everything.
This is a Harsh truth that, with the rise of technology and eCommerce business, online frauds have been also growing pretty fast.
Building customer trust for a new eCommerce Store or Brand is currently the biggest task for any serious online seller.
Giant eCommerce brands like Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa have big budgets to spend in Advertisement for building trust upon their brands and by using their cash stacks they are already doing so.
But for a new or small business owner spending millions of dollars for brand awareness campaigns is just not an option.
So what should they do then?
Whenever we go to a mall in our city, out of literally hundreds of stores we just visit 5-7 which we’ve already visited in the past and we trust them because we’ve already done shopping from them in the past with satisfaction. We rarely visit a newly open store and the biggest reason is we don’t know anything about them and so we don’t have any trust.
So, if you’re already an online seller or you want to start and want to know how to make customers believe in your eCommerce store, just keep reading as we’re going to reveal working ways of establishing trust and confidence among the customers in e-commerce.
let’s just get started.
Transparency is The Key
Why transparency is the key policy? There should be a reason behind it and there is a big reason behind it.
Because if you do not provide sufficient data to a potential customer you won’t make them your customer.
If you want people to believe in you, you need to work for it, you need to provide them with the details that they wanted to know, and a customer always seeks for information, and they need you to tell them the…
- Warranty
- Return Policy
- Refund Process if they aren’t satisfied
- Order cancelation policy each and everything.
Customers need to feel that their money is safe with you, they should trust that whether they will get a likable product or they will get their money, it’s that simple.
So, to make a visitor believe in your online store, your brand, you need to clearly show them you’re here for a long term business. If they believe this they will buy with confidence.
Contact Information
When we shop from a local store we don’t need to ask for an address or proof related to the address from a shopkeeper, because of the physical presence of the store.
But whenever we shop online there comes a fear of uncertainty and that fear of your customer will never let your business grow.
Ok let’s assume, that through a social media app like Facebook you saw something that you liked and when you press the Shop Now button you land on a website which you never heard about earlier, on top of that it doesn’t provide any physical address of the seller.
Now you are not sure about the authenticity of the store will you be able to put your card details and make payment?
Maximum times no, right? Of course.
People simply feel insecure giving away their personal details to an unknown, unreliable online website and most important payment details are so crucial in the time when we hear payment fraud news every day, everywhere.
So in the end people won’t complete their purchase and run midway.
To stop this thing from happening to your customers you need to provide them with the proper…
- Contact Number (with available timing)
- Legit email ID
- Real Physical Address
These are very basic yet very important to make them relax and after being comfortable they can put their trust in you.
Extra pop-up
Have you ever landed on a website full of the pop-up! What was the first thing that you have done to manage it?
If I tell you about my first reaction, it was always like this: press the red cross button and it’s all over, done nothing more to do now. I guess the maximum number of people do the same thing. I mean who had that much time to waste on every pop-up that pops. So, as a website owner never over-exercise your powers, we know that it’s your website but still it’s for others use, so never try to load that up with too many pop-ups.
“The first impression is the last impression” and guys this is true, the extra pop-up will not only make your first impression bad but it will also turn down your customers. Whenever we have any bad experience related to anything it just stays in our mind like human programming and that’s what’s going to happen to your customers after this. They will never try to push themselves to open it again, I mean why? It doesn’t bother them but for sure it will bother your sales, so you need to work on it.
Be A party that they can count on (help desk)
How many friends do you have? It’s a simple question right, if we talk about the social media craze that’s going around we will say that pretty much we have friends from many countries. How many of them are those people that you can actually count on?
Maybe you are in deep thought now, but let’s just make it simple by taking an example. Let’s just say that you have 100 friends now but will you trust all of them with everything… I guess I know right. No, there would be only 5-10 people whom you really trust. If you want your customer’s trust, you have to be in the list of those 5-10 people not in those 100 people that they do not trust.
As we are growing rapidly through the internet there are lots and lots of apps available online 100 apps of the same thing doing the same work same functioning etc, etc… but do we put them all in our device, a big no. as we believe that there could be some spam in there or something so we only use those apps that we really trust.
The same applies to your website. If you want their trust to be their friend, and a friend in need is a friend indeed. So, you provide them that kind of friend which is the help desk, exactly! Use customer support services to build trust in your store.
Customer view the review
Well, whenever I go shopping I believe what my friend said more than what the shopkeeper said. Yes it’s a bad thing for them but what should I do. I guess you also do the same thing. Am I right or I am right. We believe more in our friend than the person who had product knowledge.
As a store owner you must know, that friend of your customer whom they trusted the most. Don’t worry you don’t need to know them personally, yes but you may already know them. They are none other than your other customers. What you actually need to do is, take some time from your other customers and make them review the product, so that the new person that lands on your website will feel rest assured and put their trust in you.
Provide Secure Network
Do you know in 2019 what has been sold the most? Data, it’s a big thing now and a big reason why people became conscious of everything before putting their details anywhere. And this extra consciousness of people became the reason to lose for many e-com websites. Yes it’s true, just a little small amount of data. But you know what! You can save yourself from this situation.
Just one simple step and it’s all done. Have you ever seen the lock symbol on the left side of a tab? That’s not only locking; it’s a lock that provides security. Securities, safety, trust what not! It can provide you everything that you want. A padlock is that safety insurance, which provides your customers with the numerous assurances to use your website, which has been protected by EV SSL certification, and your data is safe in their hands. So, go ahead and proceed with what you want.
Different type of payment methods
Do you know the place of money that we used earlier, money is a man-made thing it’s a piece of paper, but you can say that it’s a valuable piece of paper. So, before the existence of this valuable piece of paper, what did we use earlier as a method of buying goods? We used exchanging goods method, barter system right. Can you use the same method nowadays for each and everything?
A big no right, then why we are still using traditional methods of payments only. As we all know, many websites still do not provide sufficient kinds of payment methods due to this they lose customers. They will stay if and only if you provide them everything that they want.
Payment methods had increased rapidly like there are UPI PIN, Paytm, Amazon pay etc…etc. These are those methods that are currently in trend much more than the usual ones we used earlier, and also with my personal experience I can tell you this, that I would definitely go for a UPI payment instead of putting my card details everywhere.
Feedback is must
Let me give you advice; always seek feedback from your customer. While doing anything just asks for others’ opinion, also it will not hold us back but would definitely help us to move forward. If you try to do everything on your own, you may become independent but you may lack the qualities of a good person.
Do you know why is it necessary to seek others’ opinion, because whenever we start working on anything we form some sort of perspective or one-sided opinion towards it, and if we don’t let others put their input in, maybe we will make what’s best for us but not what’s best for everyone?
When you ask others for their opinion it just makes them believe that they are valuable to you, and that is what you want.
Let me ask you one thing. Why is it necessary to build trust in E-Commerce or any business?
Because it’s not just business, it’s like building a house of cards. When you are the builder, it becomes necessary to be extra conscious. Just to stay alert to watch. To watch your each and every step and follow what makes people believe in you.
Thank you.