Trust trumps.

No, not ‘trust Trump’ - the perma-tangoed random word generator in the white house - ‘trust trumps’, as in 'trust outranks everything else'.

It was a notion proposed at the recent - and excellent - Manchester Digital ecommerce conference by Morvo’s Robert Stein and, to be more specific, it was made in relation to online purchasing and that trust is as valued as the user experience, or even more so. 

Robert’s suggestion was that users won’t make decisions based purely on the user experience because they want to know if the product they’re looking at is ‘legit’, given the many fakes and cheap but poor quality alternatives that flood Google as soon as you search for something. 

Of course, as users, we can verify a product by checking the reviews, but can they be trusted? 

Coincidentally, the day after the conference saw the publication of a CMA report into fake and misleading reviews, which was a further coincidence, as a lawyer from the CMA [Competition and Markets Authority] was on one of the panels at the conference. He stressed that the onus was on sellers to be transparent across all aspects of their offer - pricing, product or service information, terms and policies and so on. The report exposed some online giants who are being investigated into potentially devious dealings when it comes to their reviews, including: 

• Autotrader and Feefo for not including some bad reviews denying consumers a “fully rounded” picture online of other people’s experiences.
• Just Eat’s rating system for inflating certain restaurants’ star ratings.
• Pasta Evangelists for offering discounts to customers on future orders in exchange for leaving 5-star reviews on delivery apps, without this being disclosed.
• Dignity for asking its staff to write positive reviews which would obviously skew the ratings and give a false picture of customer feedback. 

Research by TruthEngine estimated that around 50% of reviews are fake, which is probably only going to increase with the use of AI to write them, but fake reviews can usually be spotted - if a review feels a bit too slick and reads like it’s been perfectly crafted it may not be real. The CMA advises consumers to “trust your instincts.” Always read the full review before looking at the star rating, check a few sites not just one and bear in mind that it’s unlikely that a three or four-star rating is fake. Someone might knock off a star because delivery was a day late or the packaging wasn’t perfect, but still be very happy overall. The CMA report said that. “If their minor gripe doesn’t matter to you, you can be more confident the rest of their review is genuine.”

So if you can’t trust the reviews, you can at least seek out the opinion of an expert content creator? Right? Well yes, and many of these know what they’re talking about and give excellent advice. But then again, many content creators and influencers are getting paid by the owners of the products and brands they’re promoting, which can, inevitably, lead to bias or even exploitation.

Last month, Love Island and Towie stars found themselves in court for plugging dodgy investments as part of a “finfluencer” plot in which the celebs were paid to push Instagram posts to their followers that promoted an unauthorised foreign exchange trading scheme.Celebrity Big Brother winner Scott Timlin, 37, apparently also known as ‘Scotty T’, and Love Island star Jamie Clayton appeared at Southwark Crown Court alongside Towie star Yazmin Oukhellou. They all pleaded guilty to ‘communicating an invitation or inducement to engage in investment opportunities.’ Timlin was fined £938, Oukhellou £975 and Clayton was given a £820 fine. All the celebs will have to pay a £1,000 contribution to prosecution costs. It was also reported that influencer and rag-top favourite Lauren Goodger had previously been slapped with a £9,500 court bill after admitting the same offence - promoting a “high risk” foreign exchange scheme. She was paid a total of £2,275 between March 2020 and January 2021 but some of her followers lost hundreds by taking the advice.

Influencers and content creators have become a massive part of modern day marketing strategies with budgets being diverted away from conventinoal media to those with large followers on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok, where live selling is the latest phenomenon. These channels now combine ecommerce with inapp purchases, and direct to cart links which are pre-loaded, pulling consumers into a risky ‘buy now think later’ mindset. Plus, don’t worry if you can’t afford it, there’s always easy credit - Klarna or Clearpay.

Reflecting on all this you can’t avoid the old maxim of ‘buyer beware’. Take a moment; have a think; do some research. All as appropriate to the value of the purchase - obviously there are some basic items that are just driven by cost - what’s the cheapest paper clips? Big decisions, like booking a holiday or buying a car, usually lead to a much more in depth exercise including research, reading plenty of reviews [but identifying the fakes], price comparison and so on. Then there’s things like a new pair of trainers or jeans which typically lead to a shorter decision process in which price checking is probably key, but then the biggest factor is often the brand which plays a big part in the decision - is it a brand we know? Is it a brand we like? Is it a ‘cool’ brand, or at lease one that won’t get laughed at by our friends, or worse our kinds? Finally, and most importantly, is it a brand we trust? 

The importance of the brand experience, and the brand loyalty this generates, can’t be understated. If we like the brand’s products - the quality, style, performance - and if we like the brand ethos - their approach, ethics, attitude - and of course the price, which is important, but if we’re assured that the brand will deliver on all these promises then we’re usually happy to pay a premium [to a level]... because we trust it.