Increasing the Credibility of Online Apparel Stores

Have you ever abandoned an online purchase because of doubts about the website and vendor?

How many times have doubts stopped your customers from making an online purchase from you?

What can you do to lessen those doubts?

Establishing credibility is a key element to successful conversion of window shoppers into customers.  In the book Persuasive Technology by B.J. Fogg, the author analyzes what goes into online credibility.

Credibility comes in four types, from least effective to most effective:

• Presumed – based on general assumptions in the mind of the user
• Surface – based on simple observations
• Reputed – based on 3^rd party endorsements of referrals
• Earned – based on firsthand experience

Online apparel stores can take steps to increase their credibility in each of these areas through different measures.  Specific recommendations will be the subject of a later post.

Some interesting findings about online credibility were obtained from studies conducted at Stanford that attempted to discern on-website factors that affect credibility.  Here is a summary of those factors, ranked from the most enhancing of credibility to most damaging of credibility.

• (these first factors enhance credibility – the most, first)
• The site represents an organization you already respect (earned credibility)
• Physical and telephone contact information is easily obtained
• Quick response is given to customer service questions
• Confirmation emails are sent for orders or customer support contacts
• The site looks professionally designed
• The site links to, and is linked to, by other reputable sites
• The site is updated frequently
• A friend recommended the site
• The site has personalized content based on your prior visit
• The site displays known or seemingly legitimate awards or credibility badges
• User reviews and ratings are present
• Well known customers or affiliates are shown
• There are photographs of owners, executives and employees
• (the following items have an increasingly negative impact on credibility)
• The site is small
• The site contains content that seems unrelated to its expected purpose
• The site is slow to load in the browser
• The site is sometimes unexpectedly unavailable
• Popup windows display for purposes the user is not interested in
• The domain name does not match the company name
• Typographical errors are visible
• Broken links are found
• The site is rarely updated
• There are links to sites that do not seem credible
• It is hard to distinguish ads from content

Most of these factors pertain to surface credibility – how credible the site seems to a new visitor.

Since the time this study was conducted a few years ago, I think we would have to add in user expectations about available technology.  Users who frequent Facebook or Twitter may expect buttons to be available for adding the site to their connections.  The lack of such buttons may indicate lack of attention or sophistication on the part of the website owner.

For apparel companies it is also becoming more expected that clothing is:

• Displayed on models
• All colors are displayed on models
• Multiple views are available, again, with each color
• A zoom function of some sort is available
• The photographs are large and very high resolution

Now doubt expected in the reasonably near future will be technology to view clothing sets, or outfits – possibly from different vendors, as a number of aggregating websites now make available.

More on this in a future post where we will survey the technology used by a sampling of larger online apparel companies (with deep pockets!)

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