How Trustpilot helps consumers navigate the online world and businesses to build trust

Trustpilot is an independent online reviews platform that helps consumers understand whether or not to trust businesses they see online, by providing insights into trust-building elements like reliability, professionalism, customer care and more. Similarly, businesses can use these rich customer insights to address pain points and improve their offerings.

The online shopping trust gap

As 2023 progresses, and spending concerns include a high cost of living and supply shortages fuelled by a war in Europe, the 2020-2022 era of social distancing and lockdown-driven confinement feels like an increasingly distant memory. Yet one particular pandemic-related habit has endured: that of online shopping from the comfort of our own couches. In some markets, its uptake is still on the rise. 

But while online shopping means consumers are spoilt for choice, the process itself has limitations. It offers little in the way of physical interaction and sensory experience: you can’t physically pick up products to get a feel for robustness and quality, ask a salesperson face-to-face to demonstrate how something works, and you don’t get immediate access to your purchase like you would carrying it home from the shop. There’s a connection in experience that tends to be missing online, and this means a gap in trust. 

Some online retailers have introduced live shopping as a hybrid which marries the convenience of online shopping with real-time and (virtual) face-to-face engagement of live video. Hosts showcase products, interact with viewers, answer questions, and may even take orders in real time. This higher level of interactivity and entertainment has earned live shopping its recent popularity. Again, though, there are drawbacks. For example, perhaps you can’t tune in to a scheduled live video stream because it coincides with picking up the kids or a class at the gym. Or maybe you just prefer to shop in your own time at your own pace. 

How reviews help establish trust

Online review platforms can be accessed anytime to help bridge the trust gaps of online shopping. Reviews about the real experiences of other consumers flesh out details like whether an online shop should be relied upon to have products in stock, whether they have the necessary skills or knowledge to know which items are best in class (and whether they’re truly honest about it!), as well as whether they seem to care about their customers.  

At Trustpilot, we’ve been researching trust for a long time. We know it’s a concept that’s hard to define and largely subjective. Despite that, we see themes that surface time and again if a range of people are asked what’s important in determining whether a business is trustworthy. These include, for example:  

• Does the business deliver on what they promise? Are they capable, with the skillset and the willingness to devote the time and resources to carry out the task as they say they will? Are they open and honest about what they can’t do, and take responsibility if something goes wrong?

• Can the business be relied on to keep the commitments it makes and deliver to a professional level? Will this be consistently repeated across a series of transactions?

• Do the people behind the business demonstrate strong ethics? Do their words reflect their actions and are they fair and honest in the way they conduct their business?

• Does the business care about its customers? Does it listen and show understanding if there’s a problem and try to put things right?

These are all important questions, the answers to which can often be found in honest reviews left by people who have had a genuine experience with the relevant business. Trustpilot is a useful tool for this, helping to deliver rich insights into these areas. 

Detailed and well-written reviews can be particularly helpful for consumers who don’t recognise an online retailer and want to know what others think about it. Reading insights left by reviewers can help provide a feel for who the business is and what they offer. On Trustpilot, you can even hone in on particular issues that matter to you by filtering reviews to see all the five-star comments, all the one-star comments, those in between, or searching by keyword - for example, “value for money” or “professionalism” or even “service”. 

How Trustpilot operates

• An open and independent online review platform

Trustpilot brings together consumers and businesses to help each other learn from feedback. Our platform is completely free for consumers to read and write reviews. For businesses, it’s free to read reviews, and if they claim their profile page they can then reply to and report any non-compliant reviews. Our platform is also “open” in the sense that consumers can write reviews in response to an invitation, but they don’t need to wait to be invited. They can also write reviews of their own accord — what we call “organic” reviews.

As per our guidelines, every review must be based on a genuine experience, but this doesn’t necessarily mean a purchase. In fact, because we allow organic reviews, this captures a more holistic picture that includes important feedback from people who decided not to go through with a purchase. As an independent third party, Trustpilot ensures that businesses don’t get to pre-moderate or decide which reviews are published. All of the reviews submitted to Trustpilot are screened automatically by our customized fraud detection software to weed out fakes, after which they’re published. As is. 

• Consumers decide which companies are on Trustpilot 

We also let consumers decide who gets reviewed. That is, a business will only appear as reviewed on Trustpilot once it receives its first review from a consumer. We simply host the content, while making sure that relevant laws about illegal and fake reviews are complied with. 

We also let consumer reviews inform the TrustScore displayed for each business. A score out of 5, each TrustScore is really a consumer score based solely on the ratings submitted by consumers alongside their reviews. To see what information Trustpilot has about the business, readers of reviews can click on the Company activity page. This shows how the business uses Trustpilot and what information it has supplied. 

• Trust and integrity in a changing environment

As the importance of online reviews continues to increase, along with a heightened focus on legislation aimed at protecting people from online harms and fake reviews, we’re continuing our commitment to protect the integrity of our platform. This means innovating to develop new and better tools to stay ahead of the minority of actors who seek to undermine the review community. 

We remain steadfast in our mission to enhance trust online and ensure that reviews continue to be a useful tool for online shopping that helps consumers decide where to spend their money, and for businesses to use feedback to learn, improve and deliver great service. As online shopping continues to be a preferred mode for consumers, we want to ensure that Trustpilot continues to play a key role in filling that all-important online shopping trust gap.