Building Trust In An Ecommerce Brand

🚨 Visa just dropped a new protocol to secure the AI shopping boom. It’s called the 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗼𝗰𝗼𝗹, and it could redefine how online payments work when AI agents, not humans, are the ones doing the buying. Here’s the problem Visa is trying to solve: AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites has surged by 4,700% in just one year, according to Adobe. But merchants can’t always tell whether that traffic comes from legitimate AI shopping assistants (like ChatGPT-style agents comparing prices and making purchases), or from malicious bots scraping data or testing stolen cards. That’s where Visa steps in. The Trusted Agent Protocol creates a cryptographic trust handshake between merchants and approved AI agents. ✅ Each AI agent gets a unique digital signature after being vetted through Visa’s Intelligent Commerce program. ✅ When the agent visits a website, it presents this signature, allowing the merchant to verify instantly whether it’s trustworthy. ✅ This works with existing web infrastructure (no major overhaul required) and is built on open standards like HTTP Message Signatures. The goal? To build the missing layer of trust in what Visa calls “agentic commerce”, a world where your AI assistant can autonomously browse, compare, and buy on your behalf. 💬 “Without common standards, potential risks include fragmentation and closed-loop models,” said Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s Global Head of Growth. Visa built the protocol together with Cloudflare and collaborated with Google, OpenAI, Stripe, Microsoft, Shopify, Adyen, Ant International, Checkout.com, Cybersource, Elavon, Fiserv, Nuvei, and Worldpay to ensure ecosystem compatibility. But this move also raises big questions 👇 – Who decides which AI agents get approved? – What happens if an AI makes an unauthorized purchase? – And will merchants accept Visa as the gatekeeper for agentic commerce? It’s a bold step that cements Visa’s $10B bet on AI, and positions the company at the center of the next major shift in digital payments. The real question now: Who will win the battle to control AI-driven shopping: Visa, Google, or OpenAI? Thoughts? The 𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗢 below 👇 is from 5 months ago, when Visa launches AI Agents for Shopping, where Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said AI shopping will be '𝙖 𝙡𝙤𝙩 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙡𝙛-𝙙𝙧𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙖𝙧𝙨'

75% of visitors that land on your PDP bounce. That’s 3 out of 4 potential customers, gone. Why? Because most sites make visitors do the work: • Finding key product details • Figuring out why it’s worth buying • Searching for trust signals before committing But shoppers shouldn’t have to think. They should instantly believe you’re the right solution. In this post I'll be sharing a comprehensive guide of 12 changes you can do to your PDP to highlights benefits and convert shoppers.  1. Show key concerns your product solves. Keep them as a badge and place it above the product title. Gets them interested from the top of the page.       2. Highlight who is this product for. Place this under the product title. Important for skincare, personal care websites.       3. Highlight the quantity they get for the price they pay. This cab be grams, litres, days of supply.       4.  Add a badge like "Best seller", "Most loved". Do this where it's relevant. This builds confidence in their purchase decision.       5. Add the results the product has driven. This can be for other customers or the result of a clinical study you have conducted.       6. Show image thumbnails. The image gallery is the fastest way to tell what's in your product, how to use it, when to use it. Get them to scroll through it.       7. Highlight 3-5 key benefits of the product. Keep this in 1 line and have them in bullets or with icons.       8. Tell WHY is your product effective. In this example, I've added an ingredients section to explain that.       9. Keep add-to-cart as the primary CTA. And not buy now. This is relevant for skincare websites since you can cross-sell other products in this routine.      10. Optimize the area around the add to cart. Highlight shipping time, free shipping, where you ship.      11. Motivate purchase with samples or free gifts on orders. Shopper should spend $X to avail this. Increasing your AOV while delighting the shopper.      12. Add a cross-sell. Like 'Complete this routine', 'Complete this look'. Show which products go well with this one. Make it easy to add to cart from this page.      Other changes I did: • Removed auto slide from the announcement bar • Added breadcrumbs to help navigate to parent category (reduces bounce rate from PDPs) • Underlined reviews and added the review count. What’s one PDP change that made a difference for you? Drop it in the comments. P.S. If your product has not clinically proven to solve a problem, don’t mention it. The goal isn’t just one purchase. It’s about building a brand that lasts. One that's trusted and gets repeat buyers. Not one that dilutes its name for short-term sales.

An ecommerce company recently approached my team to do an email audit as they were facing challenges with low open and click-through rates. After analyzing their email account, here are our main recommendations to revive their email marketing channel: 1. Strategic Email Segmentation: Currently, your emails lack personal relevance due to a one-size-fits-all approach. This is a crucial area to address. Action Plan: Implement segmentation based on purchase history, engagement levels, browsing behavior, and demographic information. 2. Personalized Content Creation: Generic content won't cut it. Your audience needs to feel that each email is crafted for them. Action Plan: Develop emails specifically tailored to the different segments. This includes curated product recommendations, personalized offers, and content that aligns with their interests. 3. Subject Line A/B Testing: Your current subject lines aren't doing their job. You need to be implementing ongoing A/B subject line tests, as this is low-hanging fruit to improve your open rates. Action Plan: Regularly test different subject line styles and formats to identify what resonates best with each segment. Keep track of the metrics to inform future campaigns. 4. Mobile Optimization: A significant portion of your audience reads emails on mobile devices. Neglecting this is causing a decrease in your email engagement rates. Action Plan: Ensure all emails are responsive and visually appealing on various screen sizes. Test your emails on multiple devices before sending them out. Additional Campaign Strategies We Recommend: - Launch a Monthly Newsletter: This should include new arrivals, style guides, and user-generated content. It’s an excellent way to keep your brand in the minds of your customers. - Seasonal Campaign Integration: Tailor your campaigns to align with holidays and seasons. This approach can significantly boost engagement and sales during key periods. - Re-Engagement Campaigns: Specifically target subscribers who haven't interacted with your brand recently. Offer them unique incentives to rekindle their interest. Next steps: 1. If you found this helpful, please leave a comment and let me know. 2. If you own/run/work at an Ecommerce company doing at least $1 million in annual revenue, message me so my team can audit your email channel to see if there's a good fit for working together.

I was offered ₹1.5 lakh to post a 30-second video. But I said “NO”—and here’s why. On 23rd Feb, a gambling platform (XYZ) approached me. Not to review their platform, but to convince my audience to use it. The deal was simple: • Record a 30-second testimonial saying the game is great for business professionals. • Post it on LinkedIn and promote gambling to my 130,000 followers. • Get paid ₹1.5 lakh for that single video. I took a moment to think. 🔻 I don’t gamble. 🔻 I don’t believe in promoting gambling. And 🔻I certainly don’t want my audience—who trusts me—to engage in something I don’t stand for. Yes, they claimed it was “not just gambling”—that the game improved cognitive skills and was just a “fun challenge” for professionals. But let’s be honest: ☑ Gambling is designed to make people lose more than they win. ☑ It’s a high-risk platform that can lead to addiction and financial loss. ☑ One endorsement from me could influence thousands of people to sign up. So, what did I do? I politely declined and walked away. Could I have taken the money? Yes. Would I have felt good about it? Absolutely not. I built my audience on trust and integrity. If I don’t believe in something, I won’t promote it. Simple. So, to every creator, professional, and influencer out there—if you’re ever offered money to promote something that doesn’t align with your values, ask yourself: “Is this the example I want to set for my audience?” Yes, it’s easy money. But it’s not honest. And to everyone reading this post: Be mindful of what you see online. Not every recommendation is genuine. Not every “trusted” influencer is looking out for you. Do your research. Follow me (Shraddha) for more insights. #NoShadyDeals #Integrity #Trust #EthicalMarketing

Starting from February 1st, Gmail and Yahoo are making some big changes to their policy. But the no.1 requirement is one too technical for most marketers: “Authenticate outgoing emails setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC” Here’s what all those terms means, and what you need to do to make sure your emails continue to reach your users: What email clients want is for a way to check the “authenticity” of your emails. So they ask you to set up these authentication techniques: 1. SPF allows a domain to specify which IP addresses can send that mail. It’s like specifying which ‘postman’ is allowed to deliver the mail. 2. DKIM is like a digital signature. Imagine a seal on the envelope telling you its contents were not altered. 3. DMARC is a policy that decides what to do with the mail if both SPF and DKIM fail. *** How can you check if your email is authenticated as a sender?  1. Open an email in your desktop  2. Click the three dots on top right  3. Click “Show original”  4. Should show PASS for SPF/DKIM/DMARC *** Besides having these in place, here are some other recommendations in the recent updates by Gmail & Yahoo: 1. DMARC policy of p=none is enough for now. DMARC policies can be of different types. In ‘p=none’, you don’t take any action against emails that have failing SPF/DKIM. But you receive reports to keep an eye. But if your brand has already seen phishing emails being sent in your name, it’s better to switch to p=reject/quarantine.  2. Separate email types by IP or DKIM domain I.e., don’t send marketing emails and transactional emails from the same source. It ensures that any negative response to a marketing campaign doesn’t also lead to your important transactional emails to land in spam. *** None of these requirements are new. They were just more often called ‘best practices.’ If you need any other questions about these changes, ask away in the comments below

It’s not a question of if but of how fast. Agentic commerce will be rewriting the entire value chain. Here is how it really works. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀:  —     The user sets goals and limitations. —     AI assistants (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) are broad, general-purpose interfaces. They recommend, initiate, and sometimes transact - serving as entry points for tasks. They can host commerce journeys or plug into vertical agents or merchants. —     Vertical agents (e.g. travel-booking, SME cashflow, healthcare scheduling) focus on a specific domain. Embedded in sector software, they operate with richer data and tighter integrations. —     Merchants must adapt by exposing APIs, integrating checkout, and making products discoverable for agents. They need to recognize agent-initiated transactions and apply special logic. —     Payment players remain the core of payments: authorizing, settling, handling disputes, and ensuring compliance. They must now extend capabilities to support agent authentication, consent management, and KYAI (“Know Your Agent’s Intent”). —     Banks and payment networks provide the trust layer - verifying authorization, tokenizing credentials, embedding fraud controls, and defining liability frameworks. —     Platforms are the infrastructure layer - e.g. Perplexity, Stripe’s agent SDK, Visa’s Intelligent Commerce or Mastercard’s AI and tokenization services. They provide wallets, tokenization, payment APIs, and integration rails that AI assistants or agents rely on. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗹𝗼𝘄:  Two main flows are emerging – depending on 1) who executes the payment 2) where the credential sits. 1. Merchant-controlled checkout —  Payment credentials stored with merchants. —  The agent only facilitates order placement but doesn’t handle  payment credentials or funds. —  Merchants own checkout, payment processing, and customer data. —  Direct integration: agents send orders via merchant APIs or plugins whereas payment authorization and settlement is with the merchant. —  Liability, KYC, compliance, and disputes stay with the merchant. —  The agent acts only as an orchestrator - sits outside the flow of funds. 2. Agent-controlled checkout —  Payment credentials stored with agents. —  The agent initiates, authenticates, and processes the payment - the agent is the wallet and payment facilitator. —  Agents own the checkout experience, payment authorization, and primary customer data. —  The merchant is not directly integrated for payment - they simply receive funds from the agent (like in pay-outs in marketplace or aggregator models). —  Liability, compliance, and KYC (consumers) shift to the agent - they may need wallet or payment facilitator licensing.   Opinions: my own, Graphic source: Visa   Subscribe to my newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dkqhnxdg

Too many teams accept data chaos as normal. But we’ve seen companies like Autodesk, Nasdaq, Porto, and North take a different path - eliminating silos, reducing wasted effort, and unlocking real business value. Here’s the playbook they’ve used to break down silos and build a scalable data strategy: 1️⃣ Empower domain teams - but with a strong foundation. A central data group ensures governance while teams take ownership of their data. 2️⃣ Create a clear governance structure. When ownership, documentation, and accountability are defined, teams stop duplicating work. 3️⃣ Standardize data practices. Naming conventions, documentation, and validation eliminate confusion and prevent teams from second-guessing reports. 4️⃣ Build a unified discovery layer. A single “Google for your data” ensures teams can find, understand, and use the right datasets instantly. 5️⃣ Automate governance. Policies aren’t just guidelines - they’re enforced in real-time, reducing manual effort and ensuring compliance at scale. 6️⃣ Integrate tools and workflows. When governance, discovery, and collaboration work together, data flows instead of getting stuck in silos. We’ve seen this shift transform how teams work with data - eliminating friction, increasing trust, and making data truly operational. So if your team still spends more time searching for data than analyzing it, what’s stopping you from changing that?

Scaling trust ... what does this even mean [hint: it's more than a buzzword] I’ve been talking about scaling trust for a while now, but I recently realised I haven’t fully explained why it’s become such a big part of my work—or what it actually means in today’s world. Here’s the thing: we’re living in a time of massive change. Millennials and Gen Z are stepping into decision-making roles, and their approach to leadership and information gathering is entirely different. They’re digital-first, self-directed in their research, and value diverse formats and sources of information. Take Google’s 7-11-4 rule as an example. It says people need to interact with a brand for 7 hours, across 11 touch points, on 4 platforms before they’ll trust it. If that’s true for companies, imagine what it means for leaders. Your reputation, credibility, and influence are no longer built solely in boardrooms or at networking events—they’re built online, at scale, through content, social proof and a strong digital ecosystem. That’s why I’ve evolved my focus over the last few months —from personal branding, where I helped individuals define their unique value, to working with leaders, teams, and organisations on authority branding and executive leadership strategies for the modern workforce. In this fast-changing world, scaling trust isn’t optional. It’s essential for leaders who want to stay relevant, inspire their teams, and drive meaningful impact. If you’re a business or leader thinking about how to adapt to these shifts—or how to build trust that scales—I’d love to connect. Let’s talk about how we can make this work for you and your organisation. How're you adopting to the 2025 landscape? #Leadership #Trust #ExecutiveBranding #Influence #BusinessGrowth

What if I told you your biggest marketing asset is already on your payroll? I've been reading a lot of lead-generation strategies that incorporate employee voices, which could use some improvement. Here’s how it looked: The challenge: → Tech company struggling with lead generation → High CAC through traditional marketing → Low trust signals in a crowded market The solution wasn't another ad campaign. It was activating their employees as brand ambassadors. Here's what was suggested to them: 1/ Employee Stories Program ↳ Team members shared authentic experiences weekly 2/ Expert Spotlight Series ↳ Engineers explained complex concepts in simple terms 3/ Behind-the-Scenes Content ↳ Real workspace moments, not staged photoshoots 4/ Cross-Departmental Collaboration ↳ Sales + Product + Support = Complete customer journey insights Results after 90 days: → Increase in qualified leads → Reduction in customer acquisition costs → Growth in organic social reach → New leads mentioned employee content as a trust factor Why does employee-generated content work so powerfully? Authenticity: Real people > corporate speak Diversity: Multiple voices create a wider appeal Trust: Employees are seen as more honest than official channels. Expertise: Shows the real talent behind your solutions Scale: More creators = more content without more budget Think about your marketing budget right now. What if instead of another $10K on ads, you invested in empowering your team to share their experiences? The digital landscape is shifting toward authenticity. Your employees are the key to that authenticity. P.S. If you're a founder looking to activate your team as brand ambassadors, DM me to create a customized framework for your employees.

#blockchain | #digitalidentity | #crossborder | #trade : "Unlocking Trade Data Flows with Digital Trust Using Interoperable Identity Technology" The paper reviews the current challenges in unlocking cross-border data flows, and how interoperability of digital identity regimes using high level types of decentralized technologies can overcome this with active public-private partnerships. Decentralized identity technologies, such as verifiable credentials (VCs) and decentralized identifiers (DIDs), coupled with interoperability protocols can complement the current Web3 infrastructure to enhance interoperability and digital trust . It is noted in the World Economic Forum White Paper that global trust worthiness is an important identity system principle for future supply chains, as this process of dynamically verifying counterparts through digital identity management and verification is a critical step in establishing trust and assurance for organizations participating in digital supply-chain transactions. As the number of digital services, transactions and entities grow, it is crucial to ensure that digitally traded goods and services take place in a secure and trusted network in which each entity can be dynamically verified and authenticated. Web3 describes the next generation of the internet that leverages blockchain to “decentralize” storage, compute and governance of systems and networks, typically using open source software and without a trusted intermediary. With the new iteration of Web3 being the next evolution of digitalized paradigms, several new decentralized identity technologies have become an increasingly important component to complement existing Web3 infrastructure for digital trade. VCs are an open standard for digital credentials, which can be used to represent individuals, organizations, products or documents that are cryptographically verifiable and tamper-evident. The important elements of the design framework of digital identities involves three parties – issuer, holder and verifier. This is commonly referred to the self sovereign identity (SSI) trust triangle. The flow starts with the issuance of decentralized credentials in a standard format. The holder presents these credentials to a service provider in a secure way. The verifier then assesses the authenticity and validity of these credentials. Finally, when the credential is no longer required, the user revokes it. This gives rise to the main applications of digital identities and VCs in business credentials, product credentials and document identifiers in the trade environment involving businesses, goods and services. EmpowerEdge Ventures