What can you do about shoppers who still don’t trust online stores?

The number of online stores has grown significantly in the past 10 years. More and more people practice online shopping and enjoy its most evident benefits: shopping is fast, can be done without leaving home, lets you see the greater goods assortment and compare prices with other stores, checkout and shipping are arranged in a matter of seconds, etc.

Yet, there are still people who do not trust online shopping. The reasoning for mistrust varies from not getting the full picture of what you are paying for to fear of entering credit card information online. On the other side, though, most people who have shopped online even once are satisfied with the experience, and want to come back for more. This means that it is the fear of unknown that scares them off. Whether these fears are legitimate or not, I believe online merchants should not ignore them.

Here are some common concerns and solution possibilities:

• Concern:online shopping experience is different from shopping in an actual store. Shoppers like to see and feel the product, they like to try on different sizes, feel the material, taste and smell, etc. Online shopping takes away that possibility.
  What merchants can do: as a merchant you can make shopping experience as close as you can to offline shopping by providing enough visual and descriptive information. These include several graphical images from various angles, sizing information and charts (simple, yet informative), comprehensive product description. A good idea is also to offer “ask a salesman” option, letting customers get some help with their shopping either by e-mail or by phone (it will be especially helpful to those who need to hear live voice of a salesman to be reassured in making their choices).
• Concern: online stores lack credibility. You probably don’t have to worry when you shop in a well known online store or a store with a large offline sector. However, when it comes to private sellers or small Internet only stores, a lot of people start to get nervous.
  What merchants can do: offer product warranties and insurances, store rebates and credits, easy return and exchange policies, place addresses and phone numbers on a highly visible place in your site; provide affiliate program members and third parties information.
• Concern: fear of credit card fraud. These fears are definitely not unfounded. Nobody wants to provide their credit card details if there’s risk of credit card fraud, which are common in e-commerce.
  What merchants can do: choose reliable payment gateways, provide secure order check out, guarantee privacy, to keep personal information safe and secure - concise and comprehensive privacy policy, never ignore consumers privacy concerns and always address their issues

There are also several other things that could only help e-commerce business: offer prices comparison, add customer reviews, set up easy store navigation (you don’t want potential shoppers to get lost browsing thru pages).

To summarize, I think it is important to address concerns of mistrustful customers, but it is equally important to make online shopping advantages clear and evident.