6 ways to grow trust and reduce online shopping cart abandonment
The impact of trust
A lack of trust in a site and its ability to securely handle card details and other sensitive information can lead to checkout abandonment.* The first step in establishing trust is to show customers they’re transacting with a legitimate and reputable business.
-
1. Choose your words carefully
A professionally designed website can have a huge impact on the trust level of a first-time shopper. It shows the world that you’ve put thought, sweat and money into presenting your business to the world. So avoid spelling and grammatical errors at all costs. -
2. Display trust seals
Trust seals can help reduce shopper anxiety and improve confidence, yet many brands don’t display them during the checkout process. They come in a variety of options and can be placed where they can be seen throughout the site, like in the header or footer. Do your research first and only display trust seals from reputable sources. -
3. Provide a clear and simple returns policy
Being upfront with shoppers about how you handle returns for refunds or exchanges helps drive their confidence. If you want to be fancy, you can craft a money-back or satisfaction guarantee. The key thing is to make the information accessible and easy to find from your product pages or footer. -
4. Don’t hide your customer service contact information
Handling of customer service enquiries costs time and money, but a shopper with unanswered questions about your product or service is one less likely to complete their purchase. Test and learn to weigh up the cost of lost sales. If you don’t have staff available to handle an inbound 1800-number, provide4 a customer service email address or online form instead. -
5. Tell your story
Include an “About” section in your website. Tell the story of why and how you started your business or why you sell the products you do. Include images of you and your employees, even your warehouse or office (if you have one). Even just sharing your mailing address can reassure shoppers they’re dealing with real people at a real business. -
6. Offer multiple payment options
Shoppers today demand more choices than ever – they expect a wide range of products, services and features. That expectation extends to payment options. In a recent study, 42% of online shoppers said that the types of payment options offered influences them when deciding where to shop online.**
Leverage the PayPal brand to help reduce cart abandonment
If you’re considering PayPal as your payments provider, here’s some goods news: Research firm Nielsen notes that, on average, PayPal customers complete their transactions 88.7% of the time.^ PayPal Checkout conversion is, on average, 60% better than “other digital wallets” and 82% better than “all payment types combined”.
PayPal Checkout makes it easy for shoppers to complete their purchases with features like One Touch™, which lets them shop from site to site without entering their password or billing information.
Customers first
As you sell products online and implement the recommendations above, always keep the customers’ experience in mind. Customers want a smooth, streamlined process that’s free of unnecessary requests and is easy to navigate.
Lowering cart abandonment rates should be a goal for any online retailer, large or small. At PayPal, we can help you build a better customer experience to increase conversion rates.
*Baymard Institute, E-Commerce Checkout Usability, last updated March 2019.
**eMarketer. Factors that Influence US Internet Users When Deciding Where to Shop Digitally, October 2017.
^comScore online panel, Q4 2017. Analysed shopper behaviour of 1 million US customers on 20 large merchant sites. Checkout conversion is measured from the point where a customer selects a payment type to completion of purchase.