Ensure Customer Transparency
Corso’s Shipping Protection is designed to provide a high level of service to your customers. We put your customer’s experience at the forefront of our business practices. This starts with how shipping protection gets added to the order and ends with the very easy process of requesting a replacement.
To preserve the integrity and transparency of the service and to ensure that you maintain customer trust, nothing should ever be done to obscure the charge, or make it difficult to remove.
When it comes to online user experiences, it’s important to avoid dark patterns. In the United States, the FTC defines dark patterns as which are defined as deceptive practices to “trick” users into unknowingly make purchases or give up personal data.
The guidelines here help ensure that shipping protection gets added to your customer’s order in a legal, ethical, and transparent way.
Make the widget obvious
The checkbox to add or remove shipping protection should be in an obvious place to allow the customer to opt in or out.
In order to provide the highest level of service and customer experience to resolve shipping issues and carrier mistakes, most brands have the checkbox “auto-checked”. This adds the service of shipping protection and carbon offsets to each order unless the customer decides they want to opt out of the service.
You should place the checkbox in an obvious place which allows the customer to easily opt-out. Usually it is placed directly above the checkout button in the cart or directly next to the order total.
Use clear language
Any copy in the widget or surrounding the service should be clear and descriptive so that the customer is not confused about how to opt out of shipping protection.
A dark pattern some websites use is to confuse the customer by using unintuitive customer experience patterns. As an example, the language on an opt-out approach to the purchase of a product might read “Check the box to remove shipping protection.” A checked checkbox with its corresponding label should always indicate that checking the box will be adding shipping protection to the order. Unchecking the box will remove shipping protection from the order.
Some brands may add extra clarity by adding a disclaimer such as “When you unselect shipping protection, we are not liable for any lost, damaged, or stolen items during shipping.”
Ensure product appears in the cart
The shipping protection product should be clearly visible in the cart, and included in the total amount before the customer completes checkout and pays for the order
With shipping protection being added to the cart by default, it should be clearly visible. Platforms like Shopify and Big Commerce clearly display the product in the checkout flow so the customer is aware of everything they are purchasing. In checkout, Corso will automatically refresh the product section so that shipping protection is displayed throughout the entire checkout process.
Hiding the product in checkout would be considered a dark pattern and should never be done.
Include amounts in all totals
Make sure that the UI includes the shipping protection amount in any subtotal and total order amounts.
The shipping protection call-to-action (a.k.a. the widget) may just be a checkbox on the cart. When the customer goes through the checkout flow to pay for their order, the amount of shipping protection should be included in the subtotal as well as the total amount prior to making payment. On platforms like Shopify and Big Commerce, the cost of shipping protection is clearly displayed, and the subtotal and total values are kept current and accurate during the checkout process. THis helps ensure that there is no confusion about how much is being charged for the service.
Conclusion
Following these practices will make sure you are not following any deceptive dark pattern practices in order to stay compliant with FTC guidelines. It allows you to offer the valuable service of shipping protection to the most customers possible and maximize the use of Corso’s excellent Corso Concierge services.