More people are buying and selling online than ever before, but it’s not always easy to know which sites are safe to shop at and which are potentially dangerous. Scammers are getting increasingly sophisticated, and the line between legitimate and fake sites becomes more and more blurred for inexperienced online shoppers.

As experts in online trust, we’re kicking off a new series to help shed light on how to identify sites that are trustworthy. If you’re an ecommerce business owner looking for ways to show that your site is legitimate, we’ll teach you the signals that indicate a site can be trusted.

For each post in this series, we’ll walk through a typical customer journey on a different ecommerce site and point out the trust signals we find along the way. The site will earn one point for each trust signal we find, and we’ll use their final score to determine how trustworthy the site is.

Continue reading or watch the video above to see our first trust evaluation for sierradesigns.com.

Trust Evaluation for sierradesigns.com

Off-page elements

Before diving into the customer journey, we took a look at some of the site’s off-page elements such as the domain name and metadata, both of which looked professional and accurate for this business. We also found that they have a valid SSL certificate, indicating that the site safely transmits data with encryption to protect customers. This, along with a modern and responsive site design, earned the site a perfect score in this category.

Floating elements

Floating elements such as chat widgets, reviews widgets, and trust badges are great ways for sites to show visitors that they’ve arrived at a legitimate site from their very first page visit. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any floating elements during our evaluation so we did not award the site any points in this category.

Site header

It’s important for sites to display key business information in their header so that visitors can easily access this information throughout their session. In their header, Sierra Designs displays a crisp logo, account login page link, and about us page link, however, they did not display contact information like a business phone number or email. Adding this information in the header would help to build trust because it shows visitors that there are real people running the business behind the scenes.

Site footer

The site footer is another great place to display business information as many consumers look here for additional details about a site. Sierra Designs included all of the essential contact information, such as business phone number, email, and physical address, along with the site’s terms and conditions and privacy policy. However, they did not display any trust badges to show third-party verification of the site.

Homepage

Sierra Designs puts their best foot forward on their homepage by displaying awesome product photography and awards they’ve earned. Another notable feature is the gallery of social media posts from customers that show Sierra’s products being used in real life. This is an awesome way to build trust with new, potential customers as it shows previous customers were happy with their purchase. They could increase trust on the homepage even further by including written reviews or testimonials.

Category page

The category pages were well designed and intuitive. The product prices were displayed clearly, along with the star ratings, giving customers a way to see what customers think about their products from a quick glance. They did include some ribbon icons near products that won awards, however, there was no explanation of exactly which awards they were. Trust could be built further by inducing roll-over text that includes the award names with the icons.

Product page

The product pages did a good job of clearly displaying information that shoppers need to know, such as price, product description, product specifications, and reviews. Though reviews do help to answer common questions that shoppers have, it can be nice to have a Q&A section on product pages so prospective customers can have a chance to ask specific questions about the product. Adding a Q&A section along with a third-party trust badge or two would go a long way to help build trust here.

About page

The about page is an opportunity to give visitors a transparent look inside the company and get to know the people behind it. The Sierra Designs team seized this opportunity and showed us what they’re all about with fun and detailed staff profiles, company history, and company values.

Contact us page

The contact us page listed the essential information customers look for like phone number, email address, physical address, and hours of operation. At the time of our review, there was not a live chat option, which would be a strong way to increase trust as it shows that someone is instantly available to provide assistance should a customer need it. Because there was no live chat here or elsewhere on the site, it would also be beneficial to add a link to the contact us page in the site header to make it more accessible to visitors who may have overlooked it in the site footer.

Login and register pages

The login and register pages kept things really simple, which is good because you want users to focus on the task at hand: to log in or register for an account. However, a few extras could have been helpful for trust-building here. To start, the option to sign in via a third-party account such as Google or Facebook may be preferred by customers who don’t want to open a new account and remember a new password. A link to the site’s terms and conditions would also help to show visitors that this is a legitimate site that has clearly defined business and security policies. The new customer call to action box on the login page did a good job of explaining the benefits of creating an account, encouraging visitors to complete the registration.

Shopping cart page

We were easily able to find the most important elements of a shopping cart page here, such as order summary and total, price breakdown, and promo code field. One thing that could improve trust greatly would be to include the expected delivery date range for the order, so the customer has an idea of when their products will be at their door before they move on to the checkout. We could see this being important for this specific audience who may need their equipment before a planned camping trip or other vacation. Additionally, a third-party trust badge that addresses concerns like payment security could also help to increase trust and encourage shoppers to confidently move on to the next step.

Checkout page

The checkout process was fairly straightforward and included the essential information customers need like the order total, which includes shipping costs and taxes. However, like the shopping cart, there wasn’t an expected order delivery date, which can make customers hesitant to complete the purchase. What we did like was that the payment method section had a unique design, different from the other sections on the page, making it look more secure with elements like padlock icons, credit card logos, and the option to submit payment via PayPal.

Bonus points

A few extra trust-building elements don’t fit into the other categories so we created a bonus section! One point was awarded because the site had a FAQ section to give customers a quick way to get their questions answered. We gave them 2 more points for having high-quality and recent posts on their blog, giving visitors practical tips for using the gear they purchase from the site. And finally, we awarded a point for having a sizeable following across their social media channels, showing that there is a real audience of people who support the brand.

Wrapping up

Sierra Designs earned a total of 55 points in our trust evaluation, which puts them within our Likely Safe category.

Sites in this category display a strong indication of trust, however, we always recommend that shoppers do their due diligence before making a purchase. In this case, Sierra Designs has clearly demonstrated that they are a legitimate business with trust signals throughout their site.

Trust could be built even further by addressing common security concerns with third-party trust badges and by making a few additional details more visible, as we’ve mentioned already. Overall, the Sierra Designs team has done a great job of establishing trust. Keep up the good work!

We hope this gave you a better idea of the trust signals shoppers are looking for as they progress through the customer journey. If your site is missing any of the key trust signals we’ve discussed, consider adding them to increase the confidence of your site visitors. If you need any advice on adding trust signals, or would like us to give your site a trust evaluation, get in touch!