Shopping Cart Optimization and Security Enhancement to Create Trust with Consumers
The most effective way to increase sales online is to establish trust with consumers. Consumers will not buy from a website they don't trust – so spending time on activities that help people trust in your website and product offerings is a good way to increase your bottom line.
You can use both your website's shopping cart and webpage content to help create trust with your consumers:
Shopping Cart Optimization
Your shopping cart plays an important role in your ecommerce business. Not only does it start the credit card processing of customer payments; but it must also help customers feel confident in their decision to buy from the moment they add an item into their cart straight through the moment their order is received.
There are several ways to optimize your shopping cart to encourage website visitors to trust you and make a purchase. Understanding what causes internet shoppers to abandon their purchases is a good way to learn what NOT to do with your website! Common reasons people will abandon their online purchases include:
- your site doesn't load correctly during the checkout process
- if there are hidden charges that suddenly appear during checkout
- if they question the safety of their credit card details
- if they can't find contact information for the site owner
With these common reasons for losing sales in mind, here are some tips for optimizing your shopping cart to encourage more customers to complete their orders:
- display your VeriSign or other logo that indicates your website is secure for online shopping
- display contact information where customers can find it easily, and be prepared to answer emails or phone calls
- have professional ecommerce developers assist you with your shopping cart installation and site design to improve page loading times and ease of use for customers
Security Enhancement
As mentioned, if a potential internet shopper questions the security of their credit card details when shopping on your site – they're not going to buy anything. Get a private SSL certificate, and make sure the logo is prominently displayed on your website to help customers feel secure when submitting their payment details. You can also help ease concerns by using language on your site to indicate security, something like “Credit card transactions and personal information are 100% secure” on any webpage that asks for personal information or credit card details.
Add a privacy policy to your website for potential customers to view. Consumers want to know what you intend to do with their personal information, and a privacy policy should help put your customers at ease. You can use privacy policy templates to get started with your own policy wording; organizations like P3PWiz and TRUSTe may be a good place to start, but you may also want to seek assistance from an attorney to make sure your privacy policy meets regulations.
Put Customers at Ease
When you consider both shopping cart optimization and your website's overall security features in the site design, you can better gain the trust of every visitor who finds their way to your website. Gaining the trust of your website visitors is good for your bottom line – only visitors who trust your website will become buying customers!
Guest post by: David Rodwell is a seasoned writer in business and economics, specializing in credit card processing. You can find more of his articles located at CreditCardProcessing.net.
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