Note: Trustmarks.com forwards to this post.
Trustmarks, or trust badges, are an excellent way to establish trust with Shopify store visitors before they ever make a purchase. When shopping online, people want to have confidence in the merchant they're buying from, and putting trust badges on your website helps achieve that.
Trustmarks are a visual indication that helps visitors determine which merchants are worth buying from. Trust badges may also indicate certain features about your store, such as special offers or free shipping.
For the benefit of Shopify store owners, this post will share what trustmarks are, why they matter, and some different ones you can use for your store.
According to a TrustedSite survey, 62% of users state they’ve begun purchasing an item but eventually abandoned it due to security concerns. A PayPal study found that adding a simple “lock” icon to your checkout button increases conversion rates by as much as 17%.
For visitors who don't know you or have other evidence of your trustworthiness, trustmarks are an effective way to convince shoppers they can trust you with their hard-earned cash.
In summation: trust badges increase conversion rates and ultimately lead to more happy customers and money in your pocket. A win-win!
There are a few types of trustmarks you can use in your Shopify store, including:
There are three primary pages where you can place trust badges:
We’ll go over all three.
It’s straightforward to add trustmarks to your product page. You’ll need to open up the page editor, as you would if you were altering anything about the page, and from there you can insert images. You’ll insert trust badges as image files.
You can also hard-code trustmarks onto your product page. Be sure to take a backup of your theme before playing around with the code itself!
If you’re a merchant with hundreds or thousands of items for sale and you want to add these badges to each product, for instance, adding them manually is tedious.
Instead, edit the code for your product page to apply changes to all products (if this is what you’re going for). Here’s how you’ll do this:
Step 1: Go to Settings → Files
Step 2: Hit “Upload Files” and insert your trustmark via URL.
Step 3: Go to Online Store → Themes → Actions → Edit code
Step 4: Go to Sections → product-template.liquid
Step 5: Copy this code and replace it with your URL from step 2 → <img src="replace_this_with_URL_of_trust_badge" alt="Trust Badge">
Step 6: Add the above code from step 5 back into your product page exactly where you want it to appear. Read the code carefully to determine this.
As with the product page, you can manually enter trustmarks or you can hard-code them in.
To manually insert them, go to your cart page settings and find the option to alter images. You’ll then want to upload your trust badges. That’s it!
To hard-code them in, it’s slightly more complex, although somewhat similar to product pages. Remember to back up your theme before starting.
Follow steps 1-3 from the product page.
Step 4: Go to Templates → cart.liquid OR Sections → cart-template.liquid
Step 5: Copy this code and replace it with your URL from step 2 → <img src="replace_this_with_URL_of_trust_badge" alt="Trust Badge">
Step 6: Add the above code from step 5 back into your cart page exactly where you want it to appear. Read the code carefully to determine this.
There’s no manual way to insert these badges on the checkout page, so here’s how you can edit the code to do so:
Step 1: Go to Settings.
Step 2: Click “customize checkout”
Step 3: Click “select image” for Logo and upload your trustmark.
That’s it!
Now that you know what trust badges are and how to insert them, it’s time to look at some options for excellent trustmarks. This list is based on reviews, top features, and overall app store rating.
Cost: free
TrustedSite is free up to 500 page views per month, and has premium offerings as well. These trustmarks include:
The company also guarantees that adding their seals to your site will increase buyer conversion rates, and if they don’t, the company will give you app credit. And one other bonus is that the seals can automatically translate into 31 different languages, depending on where your buyer is from.
Cost: free
Trust offers a free version as well as a premium version. Their offerings include:
They also offer features to help you snag those 5-star reviews, including:
Trust’s starter plan is free and highly comprehensive. However, if you’re a large Shopify store, their upgrade plans may be for you. These include Bronze, Silver, and Gold, and each offers you increased page views, verification scans, review types, and more.
Cost: $29.99 per month with a 30-day free trial
If you’re looking for more than trustmarks alone, Vitals is for you. It curates over 40 Shopify apps to help you make more sales.
Some features include:
Pricing is one plan only that costs $29.99 per month. Vital offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, 24/7 support via chat and email, and access to all future apps the company may deploy.
Cost: free
Trust Hero is a free app for trustmarks. Their offerings are pretty simple and include various icons you can add to Shopify pages to increase conversions. Features include:
Cost: free with upgrades
Shopclimb is interesting because it allows you to drag and drop trustmarks onto your site. This means it’s far easier to customize the exact location without having to touch the code.
Other features include:
Shopclimb offers three plans: Basic (free), Premium ($5.99 per month), and Plus ($19.99 per month).
When upgrading, you gain access to more page views per month, the drag and drop editor, premium support, more options for badges, and more.
Cost: free
Ultimate trust badges adds badges weekly. Features include:
There are no plan upgrades for this app; it’s entirely free, and what you see is what you get.
Cost: free
Essential features of Free Trust Badge Master include:
This app offers trust badges of all kinds, including shipping, payment, special offer, quality, original brand, and even more badges. Their app is 100% GDPR compliant, so you can trust that your information is safe.
Free Trust Badge Master icons work across best-selling Shopify themes, compatible with 90% of the top 50 Shopify best-selling themes. That said, make sure your theme is one of these before installing. Using a custom theme? Don’t worry: this app will adapt within 24 hours at no cost to you so you can use their badges.
Cost: free
The badge options are more limited with this app. If you’re looking for something free and easy but that’s relatively simple, this can work nicely for you.
This app offers free colors and dozens of payment badges in various styles. As with all the other apps, their model is a no-code one, so no developer experience is required. Their app is mobile- and tablet-responsive.
Cost: $4.99 per month or $47 per year
This app works only with the checkout page and your payment system more generally; this is not for adding any other kind of badges.
TrustBadges offers discreet security and trust icons customized to suit your potential customers and store’s theme. Once installed (yes, in a no-code fashion!), the trustmarks display on all product pages and under “Add to Cart”.
TrustBadges costs $4.99 per month when billed monthly or $3.92 monthly when billed annually at $47 per year.
Now you know a ton about trust badges and which apps to consider, but here are some other factors that may be relevant to your use of these icons.
Trustmarks are an excellent way to increase conversion and have happier customers. You can use many free and paid apps that offer a wide selection of these icons for display across the pages on your Shopify store.
Given the potential value of these trustmarks to conversions, don’t hesitate to get started today.