Imagine you’ve landed on an unfamiliar e-commerce website. Perhaps you see a few items you like, add them to your cart, and have every intention of completing your order. But by the time you reach checkout, everything goes downhill. Filling out the required fields feels like writing an essay, the shipping costs are confusing and inconsistent, and you can’t find any information about the store’s return policy. Feeling overwhelmed, uncertain—and not entirely eager to part with your hard-earned cash—you close the tab and move on. Chances you trust the brand enough to give it another shot? Zero.

Trust is a valuable form of currency in the world of e-commerce. Online trust—whether it’s the customer’s perception of security, privacy, service quality, or brand reliability—is significantly associated with customer loyalty and repeat purchase intention.¹ However, this form of trust is incredibly fragile. Even minor points of friction can send shoppers running, and later email attempts to recover abandoned carts just end up in spam folders. Perceptions of risk and uncertainty, lack of brand transparency, and poor user experiences can easily erode customer confidence in online stores. And once that trust is gone, it’s tough to get back. 

For e-commerce platform owners, marketing professionals, and UX designers, building and maintaining customer trust can feel like an uphill battle. Surface-level attempts at fixes—like A/B testing button colors or flooding pages with information—overlook the deeper behavioral forces that shape how online shoppers develop and act on trust. Behind abandoned carts are moments of doubt, confusion, or worry that set off alarm bells. In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the behavioral science of online trust, how it breaks, and how behavioral interventions like credibility cues, nudges, and friction audits can turn skeptical shoppers into confident consumers.

• Online trust in e-commerce remains low as widespread scams and manipulative marketing tactics prompt consumers to make snap judgments, abandoning shopping carts at the first sign of friction.
• Layering credibility cues—like verified reviews, clear warranties, and honest trust badges—can reduce perceived risk driven by an aversion to loss and ambiguity.
• Well-timed informational nudges can boost transparency and reduce perceptions of manipulation without overwhelming users with excessive detail or disrupting the buyer journey.
• Friction audits can identify opportunities to reduce cognitive load and boost user confidence, making online shopping feel more effortless and enjoyable.

In an era where online shopping has become the norm rather than the exception, consumer trust in e-commerce is shockingly low; 97% of shoppers report concerns about buying from unfamiliar sites.² The shift from local mom-and-pop shops to e-commerce sites has increased our collective exposure to scams, manipulative marketing, and dark patterns—deceptive design tactics designed to trick us into handing over our cash or personal data. On top of this, we’re seeing growing concerns about AI-driven manipulation.² The potential for AI tools to spread fake product information, deliver hyper-personalized marketing, and optimize pricing to maximize profit is just another concern for shoppers to add to their list.

As a result, consumers have become expert online shopping skeptics, constantly on the lookout for subtle cues that signal risk. Without the ability to touch products or interact with store associates, e-commerce shoppers rely on cognitive shortcuts called heuristics to make snap judgments about brands and optimize their buying decisions, especially under uncertainty.³ From elements of social proof like verified customer reviews to signals of authority like third-party trust badges, these signs give consumers the green light to keep browsing. But one negative cue can immediately throw up red flags. Too-good-to-be-true pricing, broken links, outdated designs, missing contact information, and even typos or grammatical errors can make customers question the legitimacy of the retailer.²

These seemingly minor points of friction frequently cause shoppers to abandon their carts—the average documented online shopping cart abandonment rate across a wide range of e-commerce studies stands at a whopping 70%.⁴ Understanding just how consumers perceive risk and make decisions under uncertainty is key to recovering those lost carts, nudging shoppers through checkout, and encouraging repeat business. Let’s take a closer look at the consumer psychology behind online trust and some promising ways to rebuild it at the moment of truth.

One of the core psychological barriers that stop online shoppers from completing purchases is perceived risk. Skeptical shoppers are on high alert for security issues that could indicate they’re at an increased risk of identity theft or fraud. Beyond worrying about lax e-commerce security, many consumers also fear being intentionally scammed out of their money only to receive the wrong product—or nothing at all.⁵ 

These fears are fairly universal to the human experience. A large body of research shows that perceived risk associated with e-commerce shopping exists across cultures, including in regions where e-commerce markets are still expanding. For example, perceptions of financial risk remain significant among e-commerce platform users in India.⁷ Similarly, an e-commerce study conducted in Sri Lanka found that concerns over privacy and security were the most significant barriers to online shopping.⁸

These concerns about risk are frequently rooted in a common behavioral pattern called ambiguity aversion. When shoppers feel uncertain about a website's security features or the overall legitimacy of the seller, they’re likely to choose the safer route of shopping from a brand they already know and trust. Even minor cues that something is off can trigger negative feelings and cause shoppers to overlook multiple cues that suggest the opposite.² This negativity bias reflects the tendency for adverse events to hold more weight than positive events. As a result, minor negative signals can derail consumer purchase intentions, even on pages with glowing reviews or legitimate trust badges.

What do all of these concerns have in common? They tap into our desire to avoid loss. Loss aversion describes how we often feel the pain of a loss (or potential loss) more severely than the pleasure of an equivalent gain. In the context of online shopping, most people would rather avoid losing $50 to an e-commerce site that never delivers their order than save $50 on a product by shopping from an unfamiliar business with fantastic deals. In fact, the pain of a loss is about twice as powerful as the joy of an equivalent gain.⁶ This means that potential gains have to be extremely enticing to convince shoppers to overlook signals of risk. A better option is to minimize the perception of risk altogether with clear and consistent credibility cues.

Credibility cues can be effective for restoring customer trust, especially during moments in the buying journey when doubt is most likely to set in—like on product information pages or at checkout. These cues are signals that communicate information about the security, reliability, or legitimacy of a brand and can go a long way toward reducing perceptions of risk and ambiguity on unfamiliar sites. Researchers have identified three main types of e-commerce credibility cues that work together to influence a consumer’s perception of risk and subsequent purchase behavior:⁹

• Manufacturer credibility: Cues that indicate the trustworthiness or legitimacy of the manufacturer. These might include manufacturer warranties, product certifications, recognizable brand names, and expert endorsements.
• Retailer reputation: Cues that communicate the reliability of the online store or platform, such as third-party security seals, clear contact information, positive seller ratings on marketplaces, recognizable payment options, and shipping guarantees.
• Customer review credibility: Cues that indicate the credibility of product reviews written by other shoppers. Consumer-generated content typically seems more trustworthy—and therefore serves as a more powerful form of social proof—when it feels honest and balanced, and includes “verified purchase” labels.

A brand’s response to customer reviews can also play an important role in signaling trust and reducing perceptions of risk for shoppers. For instance, research shows that responding to negative customer reviews can have a positive impact on consumer attitudes and may even reduce the unfavorable impacts of negative reviews.¹⁰ While a negative review might signal risk for a new shopper, brand responses that adequately address concerns can prevent these risks from overwhelming other positive trust cues. 

Importantly, all of the above trust signals are more powerful together than alone. Instead of focusing on single credibility cues, brands can benefit from layering multiple trust signals, ensuring that shoppers encounter these cues throughout the purchase funnel. Together, they can go a long way toward reducing the perceived chance of loss, making it feel safer for the shopper to proceed. 

Amazon excels at layering credibility cues to encourage confident buying decisions. The e-commerce giant provides verified customer reviews, detailed seller information, clear shipping dates, accessible return policies, and secure checkout options. The platform also displays proactive trust messages like “frequently returned item” and customer “Q&A” sections to help shoppers make more informed buying decisions. The goal with these trust cues isn’t just to minimize perceived risk, but to create a shopping environment where users feel confident clicking “buy now.” 

Even when shoppers generally feel secure in their purchase decisions, unclear or missing information on e-commerce platforms can sow seeds of doubt. For instance, high extra costs (such as shipping, taxes, or fees) are one of the top reasons for cart abandonments during checkout.⁴ These additional costs often remain hidden until the last minute. Even worse, consumers frequently face automatic subscription renewals or unexpected return fees that weren’t clear at the time of purchase, leaving them footing the bill for fees they did not expect. Behavioral research shows that when customer expectations are violated like this, they often feel misled and betrayed, leading to post-purchase regret and an overall decline in consumer trust.²³

To better understand these trust-eroding experiences, research has uncovered three important facets of e-commerce transparency that influence perceptions of brand trustworthiness:¹¹

• Product transparency: Information about materials, product specs, features, quality, and variant options that helps customers understand exactly what they’re buying.
• Vendor transparency: Information about company values, seller history, and customer service that helps customers know what to expect from the seller.
• Transaction transparency: Information about pricing, return policies, and shipping estimates that prevents shoppers from being blindsided by unexpected costs.

Together, these transparency signals have a significant impact on online purchase intention.¹¹ So, why is it so hard to find clear information about products, vendors, or transaction costs on e-commerce platforms? While some brands are unwilling to divulge certain information, such as details about customer data use or warranties on high-ticket items, others are less intentional in their lack of transparency. It often comes down to mismatched perspectives. In e-commerce, brands almost always have more information than consumers do, reflecting an information asymmetry where sellers misunderstand what information their customers really want or need.

Even when brands acknowledge that their customers need more information, they can have a hard time translating their knowledge into user-focused language. This is a common consequence of the curse of knowledge, a cognitive bias in which we assume that others have the same level of understanding as we do. As a result, brands might struggle to convey complex information to customers who lack the same base knowledge, whether it’s about technical product specs, fulfillment processes, or privacy policies. Instead, critical bits of information are often buried in technical jargon and lengthy policies that only make customers feel more confused and overwhelmed.

Increasing information transparency on e-commerce platforms is not necessarily about giving consumers more information, but delivering the right information at the right time. This is a prime example of when to implement nudges, or subtle interventions designed to influence people’s decisions without changing the options available to them. Nudges can be used to highlight key information as customers move through the purchase funnel, for instance, drawing attention to shipping costs or return policies early on. Booking.com does this by bolding important cost information about accommodation options and displaying additional taxes and fees before you reach checkout. Similarly, Apple does a great job at distilling complex product information into subtle emotional nudges that make it easy for customers to find the right product for their needs, regardless of their technical understanding.¹² For example, Apple’s product comparison pages guide users with clear messages like “Strikingly thin and fast so you can work, play, or create anywhere” and “The most advanced Mac laptops for demanding workflows” to connect different products with users’ daily needs.

Increasing transparency around data usage is also incredibly important. In a recent survey, nearly two-thirds of American consumers said that companies are more likely to gain their trust when they are transparent about how they plan to use customer data.¹³ In this case, salience nudges that draw attention to information about data usage can help users understand and control how their data is being handled. These nudges appeal to the salience bias, or our tendency to focus on information that visually stands out. While many e-commerce sites use bright button colors that encourage users to click “Accept all” on cookie consent popups, salience nudges could be used more ethically to highlight links to privacy settings or bold clear information about data use.

Nudges can even go beyond information provision by pre-selecting buying options that are in the best interest of the consumer, both drawing attention to these options and increasing the likelihood that customers will benefit from them. For instance, this might mean auto-selecting the most economical product variants or cheapest shipping options, unchecking boxes that subscribe users to marketing emails, or requiring that new subscribers opt in to recurring payments rather than opt out. While starting customers with these default options might not be the best way to maximize profits, they can serve as a powerful trust signal and ensure better alignment between customer expectations and outcomes—forging long-term customer loyalty that parallels that of star players like Apple.

It’s not enough for e-commerce platforms to project credibility and transparency—they also need to deliver reliable user experiences. As mentioned, shoppers often make split-second decisions about whether a site feels trustworthy, and site design plays an incredibly important role in shaping these perceptions. Research shows that visual design influences perceived site credibility across cultures.³ While design standards vary in different regions of the world, sites with confusing layouts or unattractive overall aesthetics frequently cause visitors to second-guess their shopping intentions. 

This tendency for consumers to make inferences about site credibility based on seemingly irrelevant design details is an excellent example of the halo effect, a cognitive bias that explains how we often project impressions of one aspect of something—like an unappealing website design—onto unrelated traits, like the reliability of a product.

That said, aesthetics are only half the equation. The site’s functional features—and whether or not they perform as intended—can also serve as key friction points for shoppers. Some of the most common e-commerce issues that degrade the customer experience include confusing checkouts, broken links, and issues accessing customer support.¹⁴ Overall, around 15% of e-commerce shoppers report abandoning their carts due to usability issues like these.⁴ 

The overall problem here is that confusing, cluttered, and poorly functioning e-commerce platforms increase the cognitive load for site users. Research on cognitive load theory shows that even small decision-making barriers—like having too much information on the page—can increase the mental effort required to make decisions, which has a direct effect on visual attention and customer purchases.¹⁵ The more of these barriers the customer faces, the more likely they are to experience decision fatigue and end up too frustrated or overwhelmed to make any choice at all.

To make things even worse, decision fatigue tends to peak as shoppers reach the checkout page, just as they’ve already spent significant mental energy comparing products and making purchase decisions. Ironically, checkouts tend to ask a lot from our already exhausted mental resources. 

Large-scale checkout usability testing shows that an ideal checkout flow can contain as few as 12-14 form elements (input fields, upsells, shipping options, etc.), but the average checkout flow contains a whopping 23 form elements.⁴ At the exact moment when shoppers are the most mentally drained, they’re asked to make several more decisions about product warranties, add-ons, shipping methods, payment options, and so on. Note that the problem isn’t necessarily the number of steps in checkout—as collecting a lot of information and giving customers plenty of options is often necessary. What’s more important is the amount of work the user has to do at each step. Presenting users with a large number of form fields all at once is needlessly intimidating, especially when brands fail to offer time-saving features like autofill or default selections.

The problem with mental load is not just that it decreases the likelihood that customers make any decisions at all, but that customers are less likely to trust websites that feel difficult to use.¹⁶ Thankfully, there’s a solution: conduct regular friction audits to ensure e-commerce platforms are built for cognitive ease.

When an e-commerce experience feels smooth and effortless, consumers are far more likely to understand the platform, anticipate how it will behave, and perceive the platform as trustworthy.¹⁶  Behavioral science refers to this as the fluency effect. The fluency effect describes how we often assume something is more truthful if we can understand it clearly, whether it's the layout of a product page or instructions in a shipping form. 

Friction audits are excellent for ensuring e-commerce platforms are easy to use, preventing design and functionality issues from standing in the way of customer trust. While traditional usability audits often focus on overall accessibility and design consistency, friction audits specifically target obstacles that disrupt the user journey.¹⁷

This process involves reviewing every step of the customer journey and looking at behavioral analytics—like bounce rates, exit pages, time on site, and cart cancellations—to identify exactly where shoppers are facing points of friction. Tools like heatmaps and session replays can help auditors identify areas where users display signs of frustration or confusion. For instance, if customers frequently hesitate when choosing between shipping options, this might suggest that the options are too similar or numerous, creating a hiccup in the user’s decision-making process. 

Friction audits are incredibly valuable for identifying areas like these that could benefit from removing ambiguity. Essentially, these audits should focus on providing users with the most efficient path to whatever they’re trying to do. This is where it pays to focus on choice architecture, or the deliberate crafting of the decision-making environment to nudge people toward better decisions—without overwhelming them with options or draining their confidence by making decisions for them. In the case of a checkout page with too many shipping options, applying choice architecture might involve pre-selecting a recommended default, applying visual icons to help customers make quick comparisons, or framing each option with plain language that highlights the benefits and drawbacks of each.

Coupon code fields are another common friction point on checkout pages. If a friction audit reveals that customers often leave the website when they reach this form field, there’s a good chance they’ve run off to hunt down codes. This is why web usability icon Jakob Nielsen suggests removing the coupon code field altogether, instead encoding offers in special links that automatically apply discounts to shopping carts.¹⁸ Not only does this keep customers on the checkout page, but it also reassures them that they’re getting the best possible deal, increasing their confidence in the purchase.

Interventions targeted at removing unnecessary complexity and guiding users through smoother decisions create predictable and low-effort shopping experiences that feel trustworthy and reliable. But the trick is not to simply eliminate all points of friction by minimizing the number of decisions customers have to make—giving users too few options can also make them reluctant to choose.¹⁹ Rather, the idea is to remove friction strategically by designing e-commerce journeys that build customer confidence every step of the way.

When implementing behavioral design in an e-commerce context, there’s a fine line between helping consumers make better, more informed decisions and tricking shoppers into decisions that they would not have made otherwise. A recent UK survey found that 63% of shoppers feel manipulated by e-commerce tactics.²⁰ This sense of manipulation has the opposite effect of building trust, sowing distrust in platforms and contributing to the very issue we’re trying to address.

Unfortunately, the e-commerce world is showing a steady increase in the use of dark patterns to trick people into buying products or giving up their personal data.²¹ To avoid contributing to this alarming trend, e-commerce platforms must tread carefully when applying behavioral science to build trust. Trust signals should reflect the brand’s true credibility; attempts to improve transparency should be honest and straightforward, and efforts to increase cognitive ease should not leave shoppers feeling that they were rushed or tricked into certain decisions. Overall, applied behavioral design has the best shot at driving consumer trust when it holds the best interests of the end user in mind.

As consumers increasingly move from brick-and-mortar stores to online storefronts, trust is no longer a byproduct of in-person interactions with products and store associates. It’s tied to trust signals throughout the entire customer journey, from the presence of credibility indicators and transparent information to the simplicity and control offered by intuitive design. Whether it’s layering trust badges and social proof cues on product pages, framing return policies in plain language, or applying nudges to reduce friction at checkout, designing user experiences that feel honest, easy, and predictable can make shoppers feel more confident about hitting that “buy now” button.

In a global e-commerce marketplace where manipulation is common and trust is sparse, responsible design can help consumers build healthier relationships with digital technology. This is becoming more important than ever, as overall customer trust has been declining for years.²² Ultimately, building back this trust in an impersonal digital landscape necessitates a shift from surface-level persuasion strategies to embodying honesty at every step of the buyer journey. By focusing on the consumer above all, brands of all sizes have the power to create a more honest digital world—one where everyone feels confident buying products online.

At The Decision Lab, we specialize in designing digital environments that minimize points of friction and deliver trustworthy experiences that customers can count on. Whether it's conducting user research to better understand what customers need or re-engineering choice environments to increase cognitive ease, we frequently work with organizations to turn consumer behavior insights into actionable strategies that drive customer loyalty. Get in touch today so we can design user journeys that foster lasting consumer trust.

Using the power of behavioral science to elevate User Experience (UX) design

From building trust with social proof to streamlining decision-making with simple interfaces, there are countless ways to use behavioral science to improve user experiences on e-commerce platforms. This article breaks down several practical guidelines and best practices, plus a few important ethical considerations to keep in mind.

Psychological Safety in UX: Fostering Trust and Engagement

Psychological safety—the feeling that it’s safe to take interpersonal risks like speaking up or expressing ideas—plays an important role in encouraging engagement on digital platforms. Check out this piece to learn how creating psychological safety can enhance users’ confidence in exploring digital environments, making purchase decisions, and providing valuable feedback.

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