How To Build Trust Online To Increase Conversions | #255 Daniel Tirca

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Claus Lauter: Hello and welcome to another episode of the e commerce coffee break podcast. Today we want to dive into the topic of building trust online. Now a lot of merchants out there are struggling to build up enough trust so that the conversions obviously go up. And on the other side, a lot of buyers. I'm looking for trust building elements on the website so that they can have the feeling that can trust the merchant and buy from them.

Now that might be a complicated process for some of the merchants out there. And that's why we want to dive a little bit deeper into that. So with me on the show, I have Daniel Tirca. He's the partner manager at trustedshops.com. He has a passion for customer satisfaction and a keen eye for detail and works closely with their partners to ensure that they receive the highest level of support and value from the services of trusted shops.

com. So that's what coming to the show. Hi Daniel. How are you today? 

Daniel Tirca: Hi, Klaus. Thank you for having me. I'm very good. How are you? 

Claus Lauter: I'm very well. Daniel, validation verification. I think these are two keywords that come into mind when we're talking about building trust online. Give me an overview why building trust is so immensely important for online versions.

Daniel Tirca: tRust is the cornerstone of any successful e commerce business. If you think about it, without trust, customers are less likely to make. Purchase, and that's what we're looking for as an e-commerce business. High levels of trust can lead to increased conversion rates. The more the customers are more willing to buy from businesses, they feel the businesses that they actually feel competent in.

 Trust shops helps businesses build trust through. Serious means such as customer reviews, trust badges, trust badge, and like the buyer protection. For me, working for Trusted Shops for a while now Trusted Shops has providing is the leading trust market and the review platform for e commerce businesses in Europe.

My role as a partner manager kind of involves building and nurturing relationships with e commerce businesses and partners to help them Enhance their trust and credibility with their customers. I work pretty closely with, partners to provide valuable solutions. Specifically to boost conversion rates and improve their overall customer satisfaction.

Claus Lauter: So you're working with a lot, there's a lot of shops out there. Maybe let's dive into an example. What people should not do. So when they come to you, what are the most common errors or mistakes they have done on their stores that prevent them on, for higher conversion rates? 

Daniel Tirca: The first thing that I come to play is, I don't know the quality of their photos, the quality of their websites.

They're looking for either fake reviews. e commerce businesses in general often face challenges, a lot of challenges. First there's a lot of e commerce businesses out there. So you need to stand out. You need to differentiate yourself , from the rest. You have online fraud, you have fake reviews, because there's such a big competition, you have concern about the product quality.

So you need to address the privacy and security concerns as well. So what Trust the shops is doing at the moment is offering and has been doing for the last 20 years is happening, offering like comprehensive solution to address. Those specific challenges, including a trust mark I mentioned the verified reviews and I don't know trust the checkout process to ensure a secure shopping experience.

Claus Lauter: Okay, maybe let's go through the different stages. obviously it starts with, being legal compliant. So that you have a compliant business, what do I need to look into to make sure that this gets communicated to my potential buyer? 

Daniel Tirca: So what we do is we do like an audit on your shop.

We make sure that your terms and conditions is correct. Facing this specific markets, we make sure that your cancellation policy, your return policy is correct. We make sure that the imprint is great. The details of your companies are there for the customers to see. We make sure that the writing is quite correct, that you're not advertising for a specific product, then you're showing a completely different product.

So we want to make sure because there are several, fake shops out there that are, advertising for a specific product. And then you end up in a shop that is selling a , completely different product. So we want to make sure that our shops that are working with, and we're working with over 30, 000 shops at the moment in Europe and in the world, that are, facing rigorous.

, certifications just to make sure that we're enhancing that trust between their clients and themselves. How we do that, we have the only three in one solution on the market. So we give you the trust mark. Our trust mark is the number one in Europe is displayed on your website. It assures the customers that the customers of a business reliability.

 As I mentioned, we do a small audit to make sure that not only that the products are key, but the company that is. running that specific shop is verified. Then you have the verified customer reviews. So what I mean by verified, we work with the closed reviews platform. So that means only people that actually make a purchase on your shop can actually leave a review.

So It just gives the shoppers insights to the experience of others. Yeah. Helping them make an informed decisions. And you have like the buyer protection. A buyer protection means for, that specific purchase. You have up to 2,500 tools or pounds, the, depending on the market, cover for that specific, 

payment that you made. All the three in one solution follows the entire customer journey from collecting the reviews and increasing your SEO and putting you higher in Google to making sure that your customer that goes online stays on your website and finishes up the purchase.

Claus Lauter: Obviously, it's a big benefit to be verified from a external company on your reviews instead of being a marketer and just throwing everything on your website, whatever comes to your mind. How do you deal with the existing reviews of a merchant coming to you and interested being in your services? They might have reviews on other platforms.

How do you get these in so that they don't get lost? 

Daniel Tirca: we developed. We developed a tool where through our e trusted platform, you can actually manage your reputation on a different, from a different, provider. So for instance, if you're with Trustpilot and you have not such a good reputation on Trustpilot, you can keep the reviews and you can start managing that reputation through our specific platform.

It's a very cool way of keeping both review ratings for, good review ratings. And if you have a bad one, let's say on a different partner, like Trustpilot, then you can manage it. So you can send the review advice, then the reviews that you're collecting, you can send it towards that specific platform, increasing your, reputation on that one as well.

Claus Lauter: How does it work with international stores? There's a lot of stores that are not only selling internationally, but also multi language, multi currency. How does it work? 

Daniel Tirca: So it's very easy. So we're present at the moment in about 15 different markets. We work. with different languages, including, German because we're a German company.

So German, Spanish, Italian, French, English, Polish and so forth. So for every single market, then you'll have the necessary help, technically and commercially to make sure that you develop that specific store on that specific market. If you're a business that. Wants to sell from let's say that you're from germany and wants to sell in the uk Then you develop that domain for the uk market And then you have those business tools trust market buyer protection and the reviews on for that specific domain just to make sure that let's say the reviews that you're collecting Are not in german for that specific market there are in english so they can actually we can actually use it towards your seo 

Claus Lauter: Perfect sense.

Obviously you want to see a review in your language. I think one thing that was trusted chops really stands out is the part of the buyer protection, which I haven't seen anywhere else. I want to dive a little bit deeper into that. How does that work? What's the benefit for the merchant? What's the benefit for the buyer?

Daniel Tirca: So the buyer protection is a psychological instrument because, I'll give you my experience when I, look for a product, I. Get to see the product I entered, but this specific website, but I'm not too sure about If i'm going to get it if i'm going to if my money is going to be wasted How long is going to take for the product to get in?

if I don't like the product when I get it if i'm going to get the money back and , so most of the times I either Get out of that specific store if I don't trust it or I just buy like the cheapest product on that specific store, what the buyer protection does, because you're covered, you have an insurance thing for that specific purchase up to 2, 500 euros.

What it does is it reduces your cart abandoned rates. It reduces your bounce rates. It makes sure that that specific Client finishes up that specific purchase and you're covered up to two though up to two thousand five hundred euros And it increases the cart rate as well because not only that i'm going to buy the cheapest product But i'm going to buy The product that I wanted and maybe even more because i'm covered I have an insurance for that

Claus Lauter: best case or worst case scenario, the goods or the order gets lost somewhere along the way or stolen and then obviously they will be covered for and will be refunded and you as a merchant are on the safe side and the buyers on the safe side.

Is that right? 

Daniel Tirca: So the protection, the buyer protection works for the goods order from you, that did not arrive or the money is not refunded after the customer has returned returned the goods or your online shop files for insolvency, right? Because we do like an audit beforehand, we make sure that everything is in order from an audit point for that specific shop.

It's rarely where, let's say that a client is looking to get covered for that buyer protection and they don't receive the money back from the actual shop. They get in touch with us. We get in touch with the shop. We where the mediators in this kind of scenario and we make sure that everything is, alright.

We worked in order to release that by protection because we release that buyer and that buyer protection we worked. With, one of the largest kind of insurance companies as well. So we want to make sure that we do a risk check on that specific, shop. We want to make sure that everything is in order, the return policy, the terms and conditions, everything is in order.

Claus Lauter: That makes perfect sense. But I understand the Trustmark and it's very well known in Europe. Trusted Shops is a well known brand in this area. You have to earn it. As you said, you have to qualify, you have to do the right things and so on and so forth. Are there any specific industries, niche verticals that you do not work with or can everyone apply?

Daniel Tirca: We work with pretty much every single industry as long as you're not selling guns. Or objects that are related to guns we pretty much work in every single industry. So it doesn't matter if it's fashion or tech or DIY or whatever the case is, we, as long as you have a good job, we do the audit first.

We make sure that your shop is secure, then you'll be able to to get the trust market and the buyer protection even I was actually talking to a client who one of my partners were talking about the the online casinos, as long as your shop. meets the requirements, or you have like a license to have an online casino, everything is in order, then you'll be able to get that, Trust Mark that by protection and, that abuse, system.

Claus Lauter: Tell me a little bit about the onboarding process and the implementation process. How does that work? How long does that 

Daniel Tirca: take? Oh, it's very easy. The way that you do it is you, let's say that you get in touch with us. You want to get the Bible petition, the, Trustmark and the review system.

It's extremely easy. you're going to be passed. You're going to be assigned a customer success manager and an account manager. So you're not left alone after the sales process. We do the integration, then you integrate the trust shops in, into your shop. That's done two ways. We eat integrated with the, like the biggest kind of platforms out there.

So Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce and PrestaShop and so on. If there's no plugin, direct plugin for that specific. Platform, then you do like a manual integration. We give you like the full steps and actually doing it. It's an extremely easy. You start collecting your first reviews. You manage you manage your collected reviews through our platform, through, through the e trusted.

Then you start giving out your feedback on your audit report that you have with the customer success manager. Then you maintain your review profile. , it's pretty easy. The audit usually takes. again, depending on the shop, it could take up to five to 10 working days, but we had shops that, received the audit report, like the bidding, like for the audit reporting in the same day.

I 

Claus Lauter: think the audit is a huge benefit because. You don't know what you don't know. And if you have some legal issues on your website and you're not aware of that, I think that working with you guys is a good way to figure that out and to correct that. Now, tell me a little bit about the pricing.

How does that work? 

Daniel Tirca: The pricing is based on the revenue of the shop. So like the annual revenue, and the number of domains that you have. So if you have a domain for Germany, if you have a domain for, the UK, if you have a domain for Spain and so on, and depending on how many solutions do you want, if you're on Google integration, which will help you with your reducing the cost of your Google campaign, your ad campaigns.

If you're on the reputation manager to make sure that you're increasing the reputation on. Let's see if I'm on Trustpilot, platform as well. And there's several other solutions that we can provide. We want to make sure that you don't just sign up for something and you get all the products, even though you don't need them.

So for instance, if you're just starting up like a very new shop. We wouldn't, if you don't have reviews already, we wouldn't recommend the Google integration because you don't have the hundred reviews. Once you get the hundred reviews, maybe you get the Google integration, solution on it as well.

So we want to make sure that our solution is tailored to your needs and to your wants as well and making sure that you're successful in your day to day transactions. 

Claus Lauter: One question I have, obviously your logo, your trust mark is a huge benefit in marketing. So not only for the conversion rate, while people are on the store on the checkout process, but in marketing in general, where can I use that or how I'm allowed to use that in my marketing in general?

Daniel Tirca: You can put it on your, the trust park will show up on your domain., being the number one trust market in Europe, it will show that your domain was audited and it's safe to make a purchase there. It's safe to do transactions over there. You can use it pretty much.

Everywhere on the shop, on the domain, we want to make sure what we suggest to people and to our companies is that they put it somewhere on the right hand side, bottom right hand side corner, because after doing a lot of tests, what we discovered is that the. Human eye, what it does when you enter a new shop, it goes left up, right up, left down, right down, and then in about five seconds, it leaves, loses interest.

So we want to make sure that the last thing that they see is that specific golden. Trustmark that they see you click on it. It expands. So it's mobile and follows you around It follows you in all of the pages that you have including your the Last part where you make the purchase so you can Put it in and you can display it pretty much everywhere that you want and how you want.

And then there's different ways of displaying it as well. 

Claus Lauter: Okay. That's an awesome tip that you just gave away there. So put it in the right bottom corner of your store. That's where people see it the most. So a lot of merchants and listeners go over there and do that right now. Before we come to the end of the coffee break today, is there anything you want to share with the listeners that we haven't covered yet?

Daniel Tirca: No, not really. We were just speaking of trust. I was just... I think a week ago, I was, on a social platform. And I was, I saw this post about people getting, fake reviews. And the request was like, I need a hundred reviews right now. That was a little bit. crazy because the response was quite mad.

If you ask me, there was more than 20 people saying, yes, yes, yes. DME, DME, DME. People in my personal experience , should stay away from fake reviews. It's just a personal feeling that I have. Not only that it costs a lot of money to take them out. But you're trying to build trust with your consumer.

You're trying to make sure that they come back to your shop. So having those kind of fake reviews on top of it would only destroy your, reputation. And what Trusty Shop has been doing for the last 20 years because it's a closed reviews platform. That means only people that actually make a purchase can leave that specific reviews.

Our solutions in general can provide, an increase in your conversion for, I would say like a good trade would be anything between eight to 12%, but we have bigger clients. That having have, shown 33%. We have a client in the UK that's shown 33 percent increase in their conversion rate using, our solution to transport the bioprotection and the reviews.

We have another client that has shown 30 percent increase in their conversion rates. We developed another solution in terms of time management, answering the reviews. Because the more you load, the more time you're going to spend, on answering reviews and making sure that they're okay and they're being seen and to help you out with the SEO.

So we developed a solution where it uses AI to help you answer those kinds of reviews. And we have several clients that shown that they've saved about 50 percent of their time. On review management. We have different solutions for different customers and we work with any kind of customer from startups to high enterprise.

It's all depending on what they want and what they need. And if we can actually make a change 

Claus Lauter: Good point that you mentioned there. Don't go to Fiverr and find someone getting you a hundred reviews or more. That's a very, very bad idea. As a startup or somebody who was starting an e commerce, you need to be patient and you need to build up quality reviews, reason reviews.

Otherwise you're just destroying your reputation for the future. And you don't want that. So really good tip there. Daniel, where can people find out more about you? 

Daniel Tirca: Trust the shops that, trust the shops. com. Trust the shops. co. uk. , I can leave my personal email address, , here for anyone that can get in touch get in touch with me, either, clients that want to display our trust market, our buyer protection.

And the review system or even partners that want to associate with us and trying to help their own kind of clients differentiate themselves from the rest of the shops. You can find us, again, we have different domains, so German, French, Italian, Netherlands, UK, Spanish, and so forth.

 It's not that hard. Just put in Trusty Shops on Google and it will be the first one to show. 

Claus Lauter: Okay. I will also put the links in the show notes. Then you're just one click away. Of course. Daniel, thanks so much for giving us an overview on how you can increase your conversion rates , with building trust on your store.

I think that's a very important topic and I hope that a lot of listeners will check you out and become clients. Thanks so much for your time today. 

Daniel Tirca: Thank you so much for having me. Have a lovely day.