An eCommerce Startup's Handbook: Building Customer Trust At Checkout

Read this blog on your favourite platform

In this era of hyper eCommerce growth, most eCommerce brands now come with a complete understanding of creating a customer-centric website to build customer trust and loyalty. And why not, the world wide web is swamping with thousands of knowledge pieces on perfecting this art. But, it’s an entirely new thing when a customer enters the checkout process. No matter how beautiful your website is or how perfectly it helps shoppers navigate from one page to the other, if your checkout process isn’t designed to please the shoppers, everything else fails.

GoKwik, a leading eCommerce enablement company understands the nitty gritties of converting those interested shoppers into sureshot paying customers. And hence, bring forth a series of ways to build customer trust at checkout.

We’ll start with the basics first and then move on to explaining how you, as an eCommerce brand, can use GoKwik’s products and features to build customer trust at checkout for different customer segments.

What Is Customer Trust?

Customer trust is the confidence that a consumer places in a brand or business. It's a belief that the company will deliver on its promises, maintain high-quality products or services, and provide excellent customer support. Trust is not easily won but can be quickly lost. In the context of eCommerce, it's about making your customers feel secure and comfortable while shopping on your website.

Why is Customer Trust Very Important For An eCommerce Company At Checkout?

Customer trust is paramount for an eCommerce company for several significant reasons. Among these, top 5 reasons are as follows

1. Repeat Business And Loyalty

When customers trust an eCommerce brand, they are more likely to make repeat purchases. Loyalty is built on trust, and loyal customers often become brand advocates, promoting the business to others.

2. Increased Sales And Revenue

Trustworthy eCommerce companies can attract more customers and experience higher conversion rates. Customers are more inclined to complete purchases and spend more with a brand they trust, ultimately leading to increased sales and revenue.

3. Reduced Cart Abandonment

Trust minimisescart abandonment rates. Customers trust that their personal and financial information is secure with the company, reducing fears that may lead to abandoned shopping carts during thecheckout process.

4. Positive Reviews And Referrals

Satisfied and trusting customers are more likely to leave positive reviews and refer the eCommerce company to friends and family. Positive word-of-mouth marketing can significantly boost brand visibility and credibility.

5. Mitigating Risk And Building Reputation

Trust is instrumental in mitigating risks associated with online shopping. A reputable and trustworthy eCommerce company is less likely to be associated with scams or fraud. Building a strong reputation for trustworthiness is invaluable in the competitive eCommerce market.

Now that we understand the importance of customer trust, let's discuss strategies for building trust with different customer segments

10 Ways To Build Customer Trust Across Different Customer Segments At Checkout

Through our network intelligence and partnership with 1000+ Indian eCommerce brands, we’ve concluded that ideally, four types of shoppers shop on the Indian online market space.

New Shoppers
Repeat Shoppers
Discount Seekers
Hesitant Shoppers

Each of these shopper segments is equally vital for any eCommerce brand to survive and increase its gross merchandise value (GMV). But, how to build brand trust among all these segments, especially at checkout? Listed below are some tips to follow.

The New Shopper

New shoppers are always a delight for any eCommerce brand. They’re a great value add and bring along the potential of becoming repeat, loyal customers. To build trust among new shoppers, here are some tips and tricks that eCommerce brands must use at thecheckout stage.

1. Easy & Hassle-free Login Process

The very concern of every new shopper is how easy is the login process of a brand. According toBaymard, nearly 70% of shing carts are abandoned at the login stage. This adds to failed conversion rate, rise in customer acquisition cost, and loss of customer trust.

Here, GoKwik, through its single-sign on token and login via Truecaller, enables new customers to login on any partner merchant website and app within seconds. Moreover, once done, the customer stays logged when the customer returns to the site in future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InIsXKmZ_hk

And, that’s not all, a shopper that logs in on any one of GoKwik’s partner merchant’s platforms, automatically login on all of them.

2. Crisp Address & Information Fill Process

Similar to login, a tedious and lengthy information filling process is another area that causes friction in a checkout funnel and must be solved. As many of 18% of website shoppers drop off at this stage because they’re asked to fill too many details by the seller.

GoKwik solves this problem and helps increase conversions by as much as 50%. Using its network intelligence, GoKwik automatically fetches a shoppers latest address and prefills it. Shoppers just need to verify it and select it to move to thepayment stage.

Meanwhile, if a shopper wants to add a new address, GoKwik makes that seamless as well by autofilling 40% of the details just with the help of pin code entered by the shopper. Users just need to enter the name and address, and it’s done.

Looking at a significant percentage drop off at this stage and criticality of this step, GoKwik ensures that

Shoppers complete the process within seconds
Brands get all the necessary data they need to process the order

3. Secure Payment Options

Another factor that makes or breaks it for new users is the number of payment options offered by a brand at the payments stage. As many as 11% of people drop off from checkout because there weren’t enough payment options available for them to choose from.

To solve this, GoKwik offers a comprehensive payment stack that envelops all the leading and most commonly preferred payment methods. These include,

Credit/debit cards
Net banking
UPI
Wallets
Buy Now, Pay Later
Cash on delivery

Besides these, GoKwik has also partnered with fintech firms likeCRED to further extend payment modes, for shoppers to select and complete the transaction.

The Repeat Shoppers

According to an article published bybusiness.com, returning customers spend ~67% more than new customers. That’s primarily because, they’ve not only shopped from your site before, but they trust your products and services to return time and again. Moreover, repeat shoppers are also more likely to advocate your brand in the market and get new customers. Hence, ensuring that this segment faces no issues at the checkout becomes utmost paramount.

Here are some ways how GoKwik helps build trust for repeat shoppers at the checkout stage.

1. One-Click Checkout

Since GoKwik helps repeat shoppers skip login and address information filling stages, eCommerce brands can offer aone-click checkout option to their customers and increase the chances of order placements and conversions.

The quicker the checkout process, the better the shopping experience, and hence, higher the brand trust and consecutive repeat purchases.

2. Loyalty Programs

When shoppers turn into repeat purchasers and brand loyalists, they surely deserve some extra respect. Because,

Shoppers engaged in band loyalty programs essentially spend 12-18% more every year
Loyal shoppers make 90% more frequent purchases than new shoppers, and
Shoppers who redeem reward points spend about 3.4x more than other customer

Keeping this in mind, Gokwik has seamlessly partnered with many leading Loyalty Point and Reward Point Apps enabling eCommerce brands to give their customers an opportunity to earn and burn rewards while maximising value on each purchase.

3. Saved Payment Information

Similar to login, repeat shoppers hate when they have to enter their payment information everytime they make a purchase. It’s a major turn off and must be taken care by eCommerce brands to maintain trust, especially at the checkout stage.

GoKwik enables eCommerce brands to offer their shoppers an option to save their card details for future purchases. Having partnered withpayment aggregators and payment gateway partners like EaseBuzz, BillDesk and PayU, GoKwik ensures utmost safely and securely of customer information.

The Discount Seekers

Building customer trust during the checkout and payment stage, especially when dealing with discount-seeking shoppers, is crucial for an eCommerce brand. These shoppers are often price-sensitive and need reassurance that they are getting the best deal possible. Here are some interventions you can implement to build trust with discount-seeking shoppers.

1. Discounts At Checkout

Indian shoppers are divided into two categories.

Those that only purchase from brands that offer discounts
Those that purchase from trusted brands irrespective of discounts

However, the percentage of people belonging to the first category is almost 80% more than its counterpart. According to many studies, about93% of shoppers use discounts codes throughout the year. Another study shows that about38% of shoppers buy more products when offered discounts than otherwise.

Considering these factors in mind, GoKwik enables eCommerce brands to offer 200+ types of discounts to its customers. Discounts help increase average order value, customer loyalty, boost sales, and uplift conversion rate.

Furthermore, to reduce shoppers from scouting throughout the website looking for discount coupons, GoKwik embeds the discount selection feature on its checkout window itself. Shoppers can easily scroll through the discounts, select one and complete the purchase within any friction.

2. Discounts At Payment Stage

Besides the basics, there’s another way that eCommerce brands can convert these discount-seeking shoppers into paying customers and hence, build brand trust. Offer discounts at the payment stage.

Through our extensive research, GoKwik has noticed that giving customers discounts at the payment stage has many benefits, building trust topping the list.

It helps,

Increase prepaid order conversions
Reduce the risk ofreturn to origins (RTOs) caused when shoppers place cash on delivery orders
Increase business cash flow

Owing to this, GoKwik developed a flagship discounting feature - Prepaid Payment Discounts and helps eCommerce brands to offer additional, supplementary rebate to customers for making payment via a prepaid payment mode.

The Hesitant Shoppers

Essentially, every shopper is a hesitant shopper. However, there are some who exhibit more hesitation when placing online orders. Building trust in the minds of these shoppers is the toughest of all.

Besides all the above mentioned features, GoKwik has developed additional attributes to cater to these hesitant shoppers and convert them into brand-trusting customers.

1. Estimated Delivery Date

While marketplaces have this sorted, D2C eCommerce brands are still cracking the code of showing estimated delivery date to customers at the time of checkout.

Estimated delivery date is essentially a date when a shopper’s order will be delivered to their doorstep. It basically gives shoppers a more precise time frame in which their order will arrive. By offering this feature eCommerce brands can improve customer trust, reduce anxiety, and hence the resulting cancellations and RTOs.

Shoppers can easily view the estimated delivery date post selecting an address from the list of saved addresses or after adding a new address.

2. Partial COD

Considering that ~60% shoppers still like to place cash on delivery orders, especially due to lack of brand trust, features like partial cash on delivery orpartial COD.

Another GoKwik flagship feature, partial COD allows shoppers to pay a certain amount of the total cart value via a digital payment mode and rest in cash at the time of delivery. This feature has helped many of GoKwik’s partner merchants witness the following results.

15-20% uplift in conversion rate
20% increase in prepaid conversions
~55% reduction in cash on delivery-led RTOs

In Conclusion…

Customer trust is the cornerstone of a successful eCommerce business. By implementing trust-building strategies for different customer segments, you can create a shopping environment that encourages confidence and loyalty, ultimately leading to the growth and success of your startup.

Enjoying this article? Share it with the world!

AUTHOR

Parousia Khan

Senior Product Marketing Manager @GoKwik

AUTHOR

Parousia Khan

Senior Product Marketing Manager @GoKwik

Parousia leads product marketing strategies at GoKwik, and she is an expert in driving e-commerce optimisation, conversion growth, and innovative GTM strategies. She crafts compelling messaging and creates content pertaining to D2C commerce.

An eCommerce Startup's Handbook: Building Customer Trust At Checkout

Explore Related Blogs

How to Run PPC for E-Commerce? Campaigns, Metrics and Conversion Strategy

Best Payment Gateways in India 2026: Top 11 Options Compared

What is a Payment Gateway? A Complete Guide for E-Commerce Businesses

How to Run PPC for E-Commerce? Campaigns, Metrics and Conversion Strategy

Best Payment Gateways in India 2026: Top 11 Options Compared

What is a Payment Gateway? A Complete Guide for E-Commerce Businesses

Read this blog on your favourite platform

What Is Customer Trust?

Why is Customer Trust Very Important For An eCommerce Company At Checkout?

1. Repeat Business And Loyalty

2. Increased Sales And Revenue

3. Reduced Cart Abandonment

4. Positive Reviews And Referrals

5. Mitigating Risk And Building Reputation

10 Ways To Build Customer Trust Across Different Customer Segments At Checkout

The New Shopper

1. Easy & Hassle-free Login Process

2. Crisp Address & Information Fill Process

3. Secure Payment Options

The Repeat Shoppers

1. One-Click Checkout

2. Loyalty Programs

3. Saved Payment Information

The Discount Seekers

1. Discounts At Checkout

2. Discounts At Payment Stage

The Hesitant Shoppers

1. Estimated Delivery Date

2. Partial COD

In Conclusion…

Parousia Khan

Parousia Khan