Ensure Customer Transparency

Corso’s Checkout Plus 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 the customer’s pay for services in checkout 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 option to add or remove items like shipping protection should be obvious with clear pricing and a clear way to opt out.

In order to provide the most transparency and highest level of service and customer experience, Corso gets buyer consent from the customer when they click the Checkout button and we also give a clear and obvious way to decline the service. This consent then adds the service of shipping protection at checkout to the order or shipping rates. We also give the customer multiple chances to opt-out, including in checkout (for Shopify Plus) and also in the order confirmation email.

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 pricing information should be directly next to the action the customer is supposed to take. Also the opt-out button should be directly beneath or to the left of the opt-in button as this is a common behavior.

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 checkout plus adding a product to the cart after getting buyer consent, it should be clearly visible. Platforms like Shopify clearly display the product in the checkout flow so the customer is aware of everything they are purchasing.

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 amount in any subtotal and total order amounts.

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, the cost of shipping protection is clearly displayed, and the subtotal (or shipping amount) 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.