Engender Trust for New Ecommerce Sales

Online mortgage lending service LendGo tells you your inquiry will be encrypted for privacy protection. On the home page, LendGo highlights that the service is free, and they show Better Business Bureau, VeriSign Trusted, and TrustE logos. When it comes time to finalize the details, they arrange to telephone you.
     So far, so good. When a shopper isn’t familiar with your business, online salesmanship requires building and maintaining trust. But then, LendGo falls short. The message telling you about the call reads, “We’ll call you shorty.”
     “Shorty” instead of “shortly”? Could such a little error result in shopping cart abandonment? Well, it did lead to ridicule. The latest issue of Consumer Reports shows a screen shot of “What Happens Next? We’ll call you shorty” with the caption, “And we’ll call you chubby.”
     But the consequences of a spelling error can be more dire than ridicule. Or from the positive side, good proofreading can build ecommerce sales. A Practical eCommerce posting tells how the rate of converting browsers to purchasers increased about 80% when the misspelling “tihgts” on the TightsPlease.co.uk was corrected to “tights.”
     Sloppy spelling and grammar imply sloppy business practices. Once you’ve established a relationship of trust with your ecommerce customer, you can afford to slip up a bit occasionally. But not with the first-time visitor.
     Here are a few related suggestions:

• Be abundantly clear about all costs. An important cause of shopping cart abandonment is uncertainty about shipping costs, for instance.
• At each step of the purchase process, allow the shopper to move back to review what she’s done and make desired changes.
• Go beyond arranging to telephone the shopper. Provide a toll-free hotline he can use to call with concerns and to give a credit card number to a real person, if that’s the shopper’s preference.
• Collect from the shopper only the information you need. Anything more sets off consumer suspicions.
• Provide a cancel button so that the shopper can abandon the shopping cart without needing to close the window. This allows you to give a message such as, “We hope you’ll come back to shop with us soon.”

     Some retailing consultants recommend use of a service which allows you to promptly email shopping cart abandoners to ask why they left. Consumer research findings recommend against doing this. It corresponds to chasing after a browser who’s left your store. Consumers want their privacy and dignity respected.

Click below for more:
Mind Your Ps & Qs in Reviews
Personalize by Respecting Privacy Concerns