Hey, Scott Austin here.

In this episode, we’re diving into a topic that’s important for any online store: trust.

What is Trust

So let's start off with why trust is important. Remember that you are asking visitors to your website to pay for a product that is not in their hands and have you deliver it to them. So visitors want to know that their personal and credit card information is safe. Data breaches have become commonplace these days and having your credit card or identity stolen, is quite the hassle. Your customers also want to know that their order will be received by someone and processed in a reasonable amount of time, that the product is of high quality and that your company will be around to support the purchase down the road.

With large corporations. Much of that trust is already established as those companies have built their brands over the years. For example, no one worries about Amazon being able to deliver orders in a timely fashion. But with your company, the visitor may know nothing about you. So you'll have to start building your credibility with the customer from scratch.

And because it is very easy to start a new online store these days, there are a lot of bad players out there. Many online customers have been burned at one time or another with things like:

• products that don't live up to the expectations set on the website.
• shipping times that are long by today's expectations. For example, items that are drop shipped from overseas and shipped across the ocean taking weeks or sometimes even months to arrive.
• email addresses being sold to spammers or worse yet, credit card numbers being stolen.
• and companies that aren't around after selling you a product for returns or support questions.

That said, customers are becoming increasingly savvy in identifying sites that can be trusted and those that can not.

Building trust isn’t just a nice-to-have—it’s the foundation of your business. Studies show that over 80% of online shoppers hesitate to purchase from a website they don’t trust. And this doesn’t just affect first-time visitors; even returning customers need reassurance that your site is safe, reliable, and authentic.

I covered 20 different ways to build trust in your store way back in episode 5 of this podcast which was recorded in 2019.  I'll provide a link to that episode in the show notes. 

In this episode, I want to go deep in a single trust tactic and that is Trust Badges.

Trust Badges

Trust Badges are small icons or symbols that you place on your website to reassure visitors that their experience is secure, that their transaction is legitimate, that your business is credible and that a product meets their needs. But these badges aren’t just for decoration—they serve a psychological purpose.

When visitors see familiar badges—like SSL security seals, payment method icons, or satisfaction guarantees—they immediately feel more confident that they can trust your store. This is especially important because when customers are uncertain, they hesitate. And that hesitation often leads to them abandoning their cart, or worse, leaving your site entirely.

Types of Badges

There are several types of trust badges, each with its own role in easing different customer anxieties.  Badge types include:

1. Security Badges: These are critical trust signals, particularly for first-time visitors. Security badges indicate that your website uses industry-standard encryption, ensuring that their personal and financial information is secure. Displaying icons from trusted security providers like Norton, McAfee, or showing that your site has SSL certification can directly impact conversion rates. Customers need to know that their data won’t fall into the wrong hands, especially with increasing news about data breaches and identity theft. Now you and I know that you store is on Shopify and that Shopify does a good job with customer security.  But you customer may not know that your store is hosted on Shopify.  They may also not know that Shopify is a platform that they can trust.  So your security badges will be doing that education for your customers.
2. Payment Badges: Trusted payment providers are essential to build confidence in the purchase process. When you display icons for payment options like Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, or Apple Pay, you’re signaling to customers that their transaction will be handled securely through familiar and reliable channels. This can significantly reduce the fear of sharing financial information online.  Shopify and your theme automatically add payment badges to your footer if you are using Shopify Payments.
3. Guarantee Badges: Offering badges that promise a money-back guarantee or a satisfaction assurance can give customers the peace of mind they need to make a purchase. These badges reduce the perceived risk, letting buyers know that they won’t be stuck with a product they’re unhappy with. This helps customers overcome the natural hesitation to buy from a store they haven’t shopped from before.
4. Shipping Badges: Badges indicating free or fast shipping are especially effective in today’s eCommerce landscape, where quick and cost-effective shipping is often expected, thanks to companies like Amazon. When customers see these badges, they feel reassured that they won’t face unexpected shipping costs or delays and helps them stay in your store instead of going to the big brands.
5. Review Badges: Social proof helps build trust. Badges that display customer reviews, ratings, or testimonials from verified buyers build credibility. Customers are much more likely to trust the opinions of others, so verified review badges from platforms like Trustpilot or Google Reviews can add to your store’s trustworthiness.
6. Product Feature Badges: Product feature badges highlight specific qualities or benefits of your product that aid your customers’ buying decisions. For example, if your product is eco-friendly, made from organic materials, or cruelty-free, a product badge can communicate these features instantly. These badges help set your products apart in a crowded marketplace and ensure that your values align with those of your customers.
7. Brand Badges: Brand badges speak to the identity and values of your company. Examples include badges like ‘Woman-Owned Business,’ ‘Made in the USA,’ ‘Sustainably Produced,’ or ‘Family-Owned Business.’ These badges go beyond the product itself and connect your brand with a story or a cause, resonating with customers who want to support businesses that reflect their values. With shoppers becoming increasingly mission-driven, brand badges can build a deeper, more emotional connection between your store and your audience.

Each of these badge types serve to reduce the friction that shoppers feel during the buying process by easing their concerns.

Placement of Badges

Now that we’ve gone over the different types of trust badges and how they can help ease customer anxieties, let’s talk about where you should place them on your website. Trust badges need to be visible at key decision points, ensuring that your customers feel reassured throughout their buying journey. 

Here are the most effective areas to display your trust badges:

1. Homepage

First impressions matter. Placing trust badges on your homepage helps build credibility from the moment a customer lands on your site. The homepage should have your brand and review badges.  I usually place these on the lower half of the homepage.

2. Product Pages

Product pages are where customers will evaluate whether to buy a given product. Adding badges like product feature badges, satisfaction guarantees, or fast shipping options near the product description or "Add to Cart" button can help reduce hesitation. It’s especially useful to place guarantee badges here to reassure customers that they have a safety net if the product doesn’t meet expectations.  It is okay to repeat the value prop of your product badges in the product description.  For example, if you have a satisfaction guaranteed badge, you can also mention that guarantee in the description.  This is because people are different and consume content in different ways.  Some people are more visual and will be drawn to the icons of the badges.  Other people are readers and will see the value prop in the description text.

3. Cart Page

The cart page and checkout process is where concerns about security are most likely to arise. Display security badges like SSL certificates, payment provider badges, and PCI compliance near credit card fields and payment buttons. Return policies and guarantees can also be covered here.  If a customer has made it to the cart page but feels uncertain about the safety of their financial information, these badges can make the difference between completing the transaction and abandoning it.

4. Footer

The footer is a great spot to include payment badges.  Shopify and your theme automatically include icons for your Shopify Payment types.  Since the footer appears on every page, having these badges here provides a consistent reminder to customers that your store is trustworthy, no matter what page they are on. It reinforces credibility without being intrusive.

Best Practices

Now that we’ve covered the types of trust badges and where to place them, let’s dive into some best practices to ensure you’re using your badges in a way that maximizes their impact. While trust badges are an effective tool for building credibility, how you implement them can make a difference in how well they resonate with your customers.

1. Consistent Badge Styling

Consistency in badge styling is essential to maintaining a professional and cohesive look across your site. Ensure that your trust badges align with your website’s design language, including color palette, typography, and overall visual style. Badges that stand out too much or clash with your site’s design can create visual dissonance and detract from the trust-building effect. Ideally, your badges should look like a natural part of your site’s design without feeling like an afterthought.

2. Map Badges to Your Brand Identity

Your trust badges should reflect your brand’s values and mission. If your business emphasizes sustainability, for example, include eco-friendly or fair-trade certification badges that align with your brand’s identity. This makes your trust-building efforts feel more authentic and reinforces your brand’s message. By integrating badges that speak directly to your brand’s unique selling points, you ensure that trust-building is not just about security, but about creating a holistic brand experience.

3. Don’t Overwhelm with Too Many Badges

It’s tempting to place every possible trust badge on your site to make it feel more credible, but too many badges can have the opposite effect. Overloading your pages with badges can appear cluttered and might confuse or distract your visitors. Stick to the most relevant badges for each section of your site. Focus on quality or importance to your customers over quantity.

4. Optimize for Mobile Devices

Make sure your trust badges are mobile-friendly. With more customers shopping via mobile devices, badges must load quickly and be clearly visible on smaller screens. Avoid making them too small to read or too large that they overwhelm the page. Test your badge placement on multiple devices to ensure a seamless user experience.

5. Keep Badges Up-to-date

Ensure that the trust badges you display are up-to-date and valid. Regularly review your badges to ensure they remain current, particularly for SSL certificates, security providers, and any third-party endorsements.

6. Use Badge Alt Text for Accessibility

Trust badges should also be accessible for customers using screen readers. Add descriptive alt text to each badge, so users who rely on assistive technology can also understand what each badge signifies. This is an important aspect of ensuring an inclusive shopping experience.

7. Complement Badges with Other Trust-Building Elements

Badges work best when used in conjunction with other trust-building elements. Reviews, testimonials, clear return policies, and transparent shipping information all work together to build customer confidence. Ensure that your overall site design and messaging support the trust you’re trying to build with these badges.

By following these best practices, you can make sure your trust badges effectively build customer confidence, ease concerns, and ultimately boost your conversions without overwhelming your shoppers.

How to Add Trust Badges to Your Shopify Store

Let’s dive into how to actually add trust badges to your Shopify store.

There are plenty of Trust Badge apps in the Shopify App store.  But the are among some of the worst apps I've come across in the entire Shopify eco-system.  Here's why I think they are so bad:

1. Most of the apps are totally free.  Now free may sound great, but in the end, you get what you pay for.  So the business model for these apps is that they are used as a loss-leader for the developer's other Shopify apps.  If you install one of these free apps, you'll find that the app is more focused on selling you other apps than it is on building trust in your store.
2. Lack of consistency.  Because the developers aren't focused on quality, what they do is just grab a bunch of icons and badges from where ever they can find them.  So there's no consistency in style, fonts, colors, shapes and more.  When your customers see this mismatched set of badges in your store, their trust will actually decrease.
3. Little control over the customer experience.  Most of the apps don't give you any control over the badges.  There's especially a lack of color controls.  And there's no ability to have conditional logic.  For example, let's say some but not all of your products are gluten free.  With conditional logic, you could show the gluten free trust badge only when the product has the gluten free tag.  But like I said, none of the apps have that level of control.

The lack of even a decent badges app led me to develop my own badges solution over 5 years ago.  I built in in Liquid, which is Shopify's scripting language, and would manually add it to the theme code.  Nearly every store that I've built or redesigned since then uses this solution.  As a result, I now have a library of 100s of badges that I can add to a store.

Badgezilla

This solution has been so useful for my clients that I've built it into a Shopify app which I think is hands-down the best badges app in the Shopify app store.  

The app is called Badgezilla and there's a link to it in the show notes.  

Now here's why I think this is the best trust badge app available and a valuable addition to your store.

1. Selection.  There are hundreds and hundreds of badges included in the app.
2. Support.  And if you want a badge that isn't in the app, all you have to do is ask.  If the desired badge can be used by other stores too, I'll get it added to the app in a matter of days. 
3. Customization.  I'm a big believer in brand consistency across your entire shopping experience.  As such, Badgezilla gives you seven color controls for the badges.  You can also choose your preferred badge outline shape.  These controls allow you to map your badges perfectly to your brand.
4. Conditional Logic.  I like this feature the best.  It allows you to create conditional logic for your product badges.  That way, you can promote the most impactful value props for each product.  I don't think any other trust badge app provides this feature.
5. Responsive Design.  Badgezilla gives you separate controls for desktop and mobile screens.  Those controls include badge size and spacing.  You can adjust them as desired for your store experience.

I'm a big believer in a rich, always-free level for an app and Badgezilla supports that.  The free level allows you to put a different set of badges on your homepage, product page and cart badge.  The free level does not include any JadePuma branding or marketing message as my apps will not do anything to distract your customers from your brands.  And the free level is forever, no time-bound trial periods.

This app has just been added to the Shopify app store.  While it is brand new, this badge solution has been tested in real Shopify stores for over five years.

Closing Thoughts

In closing, trust is a valuable currency in eCommerce, and implementing trust badges is a simple but powerful way to build that trust with your customers. From easing concerns about security and payment to showcasing your brand’s values and product features, trust badges can make a significant difference in your store’s credibility and conversions.

As we’ve discussed, trust badges should not only be thoughtfully selected but also strategically placed and styled to align with your brand. Remember, trust-building doesn’t end with badges alone—it’s part of a broader strategy that includes great customer service, transparent policies, and a consistent shopping experience.

If you’re interested in taking your trust-building efforts to the next level, I highly recommend giving my Badgezilla app a try. With hundreds of badges, customizable options, and conditional logic, it’s designed to help you build the most impactful trust strategy possible without compromising your brand’s identity. The app is free to start, so why not take a look and see how it can elevate your store?  If you do add it to your store, feel free to let me know what additional badges you would like to see in the app.

Thanks for listening.