Having the trust of consumers is very important for online retailers. There are a number of different ways to build trust for your store. Becoming a Google Trusted Store and displaying the Trusted Stores badge on your site goes a long way towards building trust with your potential customers.

Being accepted in the Google Trusted Store program and displaying the badge on your site lets consumers know that their orders are protected by Google for up to $1000, and they know Google will help in resolving any issues they have with your store.

Google doesn’t just let any online retailer display the Trusted Store badge; There are several requirements you will need to meet to earn that badge:

1. Currently, the program is only available to US merchants
2. The site’s content and customer support must be in English
3. Merchants must process 600 orders on a 90-day rolling basis
4. 90% of orders must be delivered on-time
5. The Merchant must maintain a minimum 4 star rating on Google Trusted Stores customer survey and seller ratings over a 90-day rolling basis
6. No more than 1 in 300 protected orders shall be escalated on a 90-day rolling basis
7. It shall take on average no more than 4 calendar days for a merchant to resolve any issues
8. If the annual payout of refunds paid by Google exceeds $5000 the client’s participation in the program may be suspended or terminated.

If you believe your store qualifies, head over to Google Trusted Stores to sign up for an account. Google will ask you several questions about your business. Once you answer all the questions you are ready to integrate the Google Trusted Store code into your site. Depending on the platform you use this could be relatively easy, both Yahoo! Stores and BigCommerce have built the code into their platforms, or may require more technical knowledge to integrate the code with your site.

Once the Trusted Store code is in place you need to test the code to make sure it is working correctly, Google gives you a special URL to test the code. If the code is working correctly, your store will enter the Trusted Stores qualification period. The qualification period can last anywhere from 30 – 90 days, depending on your order volume. During this time Google will monitor your store and the badge will not appear on your site. After the qualification Google will notify you whether your store passed and was accepted into the program. If it was the badge will automatically appear on the site.