Author: Neil Patel / Source: Quick Sprout If you can’t earn consumers’ trust, you’re fighting a losing battle. And what’s a specific area
If you can’t earn consumers’ trust, you’re fighting a losing battle.
And what’s a specific area that makes many consumers wary?
That’s simple. It’s the way in which businesses handle payment information.
In fact, a lack of trust in credit card processing is one of the top reasons for checkout abandonment.
Research from the Baymard Institute found that “18% of American shoppers abandon the checkout because they don’t trust the website with their credit card information.”
And I totally get it.
I completely understand why some shoppers feel uncomfortable sharing their credit card information.
Identity theft and cyber crime are on the rise. This is people’s money and identity we’re talking about! I don’t blame people for being super cautious.
A study from Javelin Strategy & Research found that identity fraud hit a record high in 2016.
More specifically,
$16 billion was stolen from 15.4 million U.S. consumers in 2016, compared with $15.3 billion and 13.1 million victims a year earlier.
In the past six years, identity theft thieves have stolen over $107 billion.
Here’s what that looks like in graphs:
It has become a serious problem.
If you haven’t been the victim of identity theft yourself, there’s a good chance you know someone who has.
Just look at the increase in the number of identity theft and fraud complaints between 2012 and 2015:
This means one thing.
Most people don’t want to hand over their credit card information to just anyone.
They want to know for sure that the company they’re doing business with is taking every possible security precaution to ensure that their sensitive information doesn’t wind up in the wrong hands.
And I definitely understand where they’re coming from.
I know I avoid doing business with any website that looks sketchy and where security could be a potential issue.
In fact, I’ve found myself abandoning the checkout page several times on account of this.
It’s just not worth the risk.
How can you gain the trust of your online shoppers?
This puts modern business owners in a bit of a quandary.
You need to come up with an effective way to put shoppers’ minds at ease and let them know they’re in good hands when they do business with you.
What can you do?
There are several factors that shoppers take into consideration when determining whether or not they trust a particular website.
Some examples include:
- How professional the site looks
- How quickly it loads
- Whether a trusted friend or colleague has used the site before
- Whether the site contains well-known brands or products
- Whether it has easy-to-find contact information
But there’s one factor that reassures shoppers above all else.
And that’s a trust seal.
In fact,
a survey conducted by Econsultancy/Toluna confirmed the power of trust seals when it asked participants which factors help them to decide whether or not to trust a website.
Just think about it.
How many times have you had your fears or doubts quelled when you saw a trust seal when you’re checking out?
I know this puts me at ease.
And there’s evidence that shows just how big of an impact trust seals can have.
Research on trust seals
This great article from ConversionXL tackles the topic of checkout optimization and the way trust seals affect security perception.
The post includes data from a study that used eye tracking to determine the exact impact trust seals have.
Here’s a screenshot of what this study entailed:
And here are the observational patterns (the patterns respondents’ eyes followed):
After shoppers initially look at the…
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