• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, April 13, 2017

According to new research by GetApp by Rhian Davies, just a quarter of consumers indicated that secure browsing (including the presence of https) was most important to them when shopping online. Key findings

• For 33.8% of consumers, customer reviews are the most important feature that makes them trust eCommerce stores when shopping online
• A quarter of consumers say that secure browsing is the most important trustworthy feature of an online store
• Almost 1 in 6 consumers favor a clean website design, layout, and navigation when assessing the trustworthiness of a website
• Only one in ten of consumers say that the ease of contacting a company is the most important factor that makes them trust shopping on a website
• Almost 15% of consumers value accurate and up-to-date content as the benchmark of a trustworthy online store

Late last year, says the report, Gartner wrote about the importance of trustworthiness in digital commerce, predicting that “by 2020, companies that are digitally trustworthy will generate 20% more online profit than those that are not”.

This research, combined with the GetApp survey, suggests that businesses need to consider how potential customers view their online stores in terms of trustworthiness in order to generate more profit and attract and retain customers. This is an ambition which more than half of small businesses said was their number one priority, GetApp reported in late 2016.

Small Businesses Priorities To Ensure Consumer Trust In Ecommerce

• For consumers, handing over their money to a cashier in a brick-and-mortar store gives them more peace of mind than filling in their payment details online; in traditional stores, money is safely transferred to the cash register, and they’re physically handed their receipt for the transaction.
• If there are any issues with their goods, then going back to the store to resolve them (for refunds, returns, queries, etc) isn’t a big problem. The exchange of goods and money is instantaneous, and their issues will be dealt with by people, in person.
• People are far more wary when shopping online, due to concerns of identity theft, credit card fraud, and insecurity over the reliability of the company. As the online store is somewhat ‘intangible’, consumers have less on which to assess its trustworthiness. Potential customers look to a variety of factors such as design and content to judge your store.

However, the survey determines that customer reviews are the most important factor for consumers, so here’s a deeper look into why customer reviews are so important in helping to improve trust in your eCommerce store:

• Customer reviews influence 90% of consumers’ buying decisions
• Almost 90% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they would trust a personal recommendation
• Customer reviews can help improve your SEO efforts through boosting long-tail keyword traffic and social conversation.

Demographics: Over 200 US-based consumer respondents. Respondents are all aged over 18 and have an average inferred annual income of $24k – $150k.

For the complete post by GetApp, please visit here.