When considering the safety of online shopping, you would never give your credit card number to someone you don’t know, yet some online retailers expect that. This is how retail works in the 21st century, but it still doesn’t feel right. At the very least, it may feel a customer uneasy, which may be just enough for them to give up at the last moment (abandon their shopping cart).
So, how can you persuade them to push on and trust you with this purchase?
The answer is simple to give and difficult to execute – you need to focus on the safety of online shopping.
Here’s how you can take some of the first steps on this journey of a thousand miles.
1. Start with SSL encryption
The first thing with the safety of online shopping you need to do is ensure that your online store has SSL encryption. This encryption makes it very difficult for hackers and other malicious parties to intercept data handled on your site.
While this is always a good idea, SSL encryption matters the most when handling sensitive information like credit card numbers.
The majority of customers actually look for signs of SSL encryption. URLs secured this way starts with “https” instead of just “http.” Just check any guide about safe shopping online, and you’ll see this caveat as one of the first three tips on the list. In other words, it’s something that you can offer to the most cautious of customers to gain an immediate credibility boost.
Now, there are several ways to obtain an SSL certificate. First, you must find a certificate provider and have them inspect your site. While a certificate will boost credibility, it’s a secondary matter. SSL encryption and protection is the main objective; a certificate you can brag about is just a badge of honor.
Regarding reputation and your ability to protect your audience, it’s important to note that your SEO rank also makes a difference. Customers are more likely to believe better-ranked sites. Getting an SSL certificate can help you get ranked better. This is a direct and indirect boon since an SSL certificate might also get you more traffic (a ranking metric).
For those who doubt if this is the way to go, it’s worth pointing SSL certificate authority market is expected to be worth $226 million by the end of 2026.
2. Insist on strong security policies
When it comes to safety of online shopping, security policies work by making it harder for your audience to make a critical mistake. While you don’t want to start by making negative assumptions, it’s safe to guess that, given the option, some people would use 123 as their password. The simplest way to fight this problem is to eliminate this option.
You need to start by insisting on strong passwords. So, when registering on your site, you must require a:
- Complex password
- Unique password
- Use of mixed character types
Other than this, it would be useful if you had mandatory password changes. Some sites handle this by insisting you change the password every 90 days. While this sounds excessive, it provides a considerable boost in overall safety.
If your customer's passwords are too obvious (pet name, child’s birthday, etc.), no amount of cyber protection will help you. Still, there is a method that you could use to get an edge here, one we’ll briefly discuss.
The next thing you need to insist on is the two-point authentication. This works even without account registration. While making a purchase, you can ask for a confirmation email or a code sent by SMS. This way, you’ll also minimize the threat of friendly fraud.
There is a hidden marketing boon to this method. Namely, you get their phone number for your SMS marketing list and email for your email marketing. Nonetheless, security is still your primary reason for doing any of this. Never lose this from sight.
3. Balance between generous return policy and refund fraud protection
The biggest problem with the first online purchase is the lack of trust between the parties. You want your audience to feel comfortable since it directly impacts the chance that they’ll buy. It also increases the odds that they place an order larger than standard.
So, you need to start by setting a generous return policy and strongly promoting it to send the message to your audience. So, where do you start?
While there’s no general rule, 15-30 days is a standard return policy. If you want, you can go as high as 90 days. Sure, this can be problematic, set you back financially, and expose you to potential abuse, but it also makes you look much safer to potential buyers.
The problem is that if your return policy is too generous, you expose yourself to refund fraud.
For instance, buyers can claim that they never received an item, get the money, and keep it. They could also use the item several times, return it and get the money back. Some online stores have refund policies that are so lax that they don’t even ask the customer to return the product.
Whatever you decide to do, make sure that you carefully verbalize all these rules. Ambiguity can be problematic and, when it comes to legal arbitrage, usually goes against the party that failed to express their intention properly.
One of the most important things to keep in mind (while making a safety of online shopping policy) is to learn the difference between payment fraud and friendly fraud. While the latter is far harder to establish, with the right approach, you can minimize risks.
4. Provide a decent customer support
No matter how extraordinary your safety of online shopping measures are and how comprehensive your policy gets, some problems can’t be resolved automatically. You need excellent customer support to handle some of these issues and resolve problems proactively.
An important thing to note is that your customer support isn’t there just to resolve fraud-related problems. They’re also there to address issues and answer questions. Sometimes, it takes two lines of text to put a customer’s mind at ease.
Remember that it’s not just your customer service. To do their job well, they need to communicate with all the other departments in your organization. In other words, you seem trustworthy, and this may translate to the rest of your conversion rate.
Customer support is also there to gather feedback. You see, most of these problems are something your FAQ and regular instructions don’t address. It wouldn’t be that far-fetched to say that some of these problems will be unprecedented. This is why gathering all this feedback can help you take measures to prevent these problems from recurring.
The funniest thing about customer support is that it can boost your reputation far more efficiently than without a problem. It sounds ironic, but when you approach this matter more objectively, no one expects everything to run all the time smoothly. Still, if your customer support is responsive, polite, and resolves the issue immediately, that’s all people need.
People love when you meet their needs, hear their complaints, and resolve problems. This is why great customer support can do more than make your shopping process safer. They can also improve your online reputation and increase brand loyalty.
5. Keep all your software up to date
The truth about modern software is that it’s never a complete product. The development team does its best and elaborately tests it, but having hundreds of test participants is nowhere comparable to having millions of active users.
If these users regularly report feedback (which some are), you’ll learn of so many flaws and problems in the system. While this sounds alarming, it’s okay if you’re vigilant in fixing these issues.
As a developer, you must find and fix these problems continuously. In theory, this means that every new version has fewer problems and gaps than the previous one. So, as a site owner, you're leaving your site exposed by failing to update your software.
There are some fields in which this is especially important. These are CMS like WordPress, where most e-commerce sites are hosted. This is a pressing matter because WordPress is a huge name, and all these exploits have become relatively public. So, failing to update means painting a huge target on your back.
Also, keep in mind that updating your website keeps it running smoothly. Upgrading user experience might not directly boost security, but it does affect how you perceive your site. A slow and lagging site might be completely safe, but your customers will be naturally suspicious of it. After all, if you can’t make it run smoothly, what else have you missed? There might be no correlation between these two things, but it’s not how your audience will perceive it.
Improving your online shopping process leads to a revenue and reputation boost
Some people are cautious when making online payments with retailers they don’t know. So, to persuade them to purchase from your site, you need to present them with a credible and trustworthy payment system.
A ruined reputation is easy to gain and hard to shake off, so make your system ironclad and make it harder for your customers to make mistakes.
Lastly, being trustworthy is not enough. You must also look at the part. So, having a safe-looking site, a stellar reputation, and a necessary certificate might do the trick.
This article was kindly provided by Srdjan Gombar, a veteran content writer, published author, and amateur boxer. Srdjan has a Bachelor of Arts in English Language & Literature and is passionate about technology, pop culture, and self-improvement. His free time he spends reading, watching movies, and playing Super Mario Bros. with his son.
