Making the very first purchase from a site you've just
stumbled across can often be a very emotional experience.
The excellent copy, hard-hitting benefits, and free demo
you loved have compelled you to own this wondrous product.
But at the same time something holds you back. It could be
a missing privacy policy, an order page that's not secure,
or perhaps the company seems faceless - are these guys
reputable or are they located off-shore?
It could even be something that just strikes you as
unprofessional - bad grammar, an annoying flash
presentation, weird fonts, slabs of text on dark
background, or broken links.
As result, you hold off on your buying decision. How often
is your site having this effect on customers? Likely, quite
a bit, but like most online retailers you'll never know
when this happens.
TRUSTe, the independent online trust authority, and TNS
announced the results of their 2005 Holiday Shopping/Online
Trust Survey. The results may surprise you. Many internet
users simply don't trust smaller, independent online
retailers.
According to the study:
· While 78 percent of American internet users plan
to conduct some shopping online this year, 69 percent of
those shoppers will limit their online purchasing because
of fears associated with misuse of personal information.
· Privacy issues will deter more than 40 percent of
consumers from shopping at smaller online retailers.
· Among those willing to use ecommerce, nearly 42
percent prefer using the large, well-known online brands
they believe will keep them safer from privacy-related
threats.
· The top five factors that shoppers say might limit
or prevent them from buying online this holiday season are,
in order; o identity theft (cited by 49 percent) o spam
resulting from online purchases (39 percent) o credit card
theft (39 percent) o spyware (38 percent) o preference for
the touch and feel of shopping in bricks-and-mortar stores
(35 percent)
But it's not just lack of brand name awareness that may
cause someone to hesitate buying from you.
A study conducted by Stanford University's Persuasive
Technology Lab revealed that little things, such as
misspellings, could be detrimental to a site's credibility.
So what creates trust?
The Stanford study analyzed key factors - expertise,
trustworthiness, sponsorship, and miscellaneous criteria
and found some of the highest rated elements to be:
· fast response to customer service queries
· comprehensive and clear information
· author's credentials are listed
· complete contact information is listed
· privacy policy clearly stated
· search capabilities on the site
· site has been prominently advertised
· ads on site are relevant
· professional design
· site has proven useful in the past
This tactic will focus on how you can make fast changes to
your site that may dramatically boost the trust level
between you and your site visitors.
The 4 Key Areas of Trust
We've identified 4 key areas where you can build trust on
your site. We'll show you how to implement trust-building
techniques in these 4 areas.
The areas to focus on are:
1. Transparency: Can the visitor quickly identify who you
are, see your contact information and understand your
background?
2. The Human Touch: Does your site incorporate elements
that give it a human touch? This includes bios, pictures of
staff, as well as technological tricks like virtual
assistants and blogs.
3. Customer Care: Does your site show that you care about
your customers?
4. Privacy and Security: Do you have prominent, well
defined security and privacy policies? After reading this
tactic you should be able to immediately incorporate many
of these trust elements within your site in a day or two.
Although some of the elements of trust sound complicated to
create (such as a privacy policy) we'll show you shortcuts
and offer templates that will make this easy to do.
----------------------------------------------------
Bjorn Brands is a successfull enterprenuer who transitioned
from having his own building company to a great online
business. Check out his site and see for yourself how he
can help you do the same at http://www.moneyacces.com
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