The Trusted Shops Trustmark stands for quality and has been a well-known trust brand for more than 20 years. Many consumers have already had positive experiences with shops that carry our Trustmark. This makes the Trustmark a clear driver of conversion.
To ensure that customers continue to trust the quality promise of the Trustmark, it is important that Trusted Shops audits every online shop that wants to carry the seal. That’s why our certification team will check your shop against our quality criteria before it is allowed to carry the Trustmark. In this article, we explain the process of this audit and how you can help to successfully finalise this certification as quickly as possible.
How do I start the certification process?
Provided you have booked the Trustmark, you do not need to do anything else to initiate the certification process. Immediately after the acceptance of contract, our team starts with the audit.
E-mail: members@trustedshops.com | Telephone: +44 203 364 5906
During the audit, a member of our certification team will examine your shop using a country-specific audit protocol that includes more than 100 criteria and is based on the aforementioned quality criteria. In particular, the extent to which consumer protection is fulfilled in your shop is audited. This means that the contents of the audit are identity and accessibility, data protection and security, cancellation, products and costs, delivery and payment and the ordering process.
At the latest 10 working days after the start of the audit, the audit is completed with the preparation of the audit report. The audit report gives you an overview of all the points that still need to be adjusted in your shop before you can be awarded the Trustmark.
How do I process the audit report?
As soon as the audit report has been prepared and is ready for you, you will receive an e-mail from us. The e-mail contains a link that will take you directly to the audit report. Alternatively, you can also call up your audit report directly in My Trusted Shops.
To do this, move your cursor within the main navigation to the menu item “More” (). Then select the menu item “Audits" in the drop-down menu that now opens. Open the tab "All audits" (
) and click on the Info button (i) (
) of the shop whose audit report you want to view. The audit reports (
) are then displayed.
As soon as the audit report is available to you, the ball is in your court: Implement the points listed in the audit report in your shop. In order to be allowed to carry the Trustmark, you must adjust all the points listed in your report. To support you in the best way possible, you will find numerous aids in the audit report on how you can specifically adapt the points. In addition, your personal certification contact will be very happy to answer any questions you may have.
There is no set deadline for the implementation of the audit report. When you process the audit report is at your own discretion. Please note, however, that the certification process will not continue until you have implemented the points to be adjusted. In addition, in the event of longer delays, legal changes may arise that may necessitate a new audit. We therefore advise you to process the audit report as soon as possible. The faster you can carry out the implementation, the sooner you will be able to carry the Trustmark.
As soon as you have fully processed the audit report, you can inform us about it via My Trusted Shops. To do this, please click on "Please audit the shop again". Your shop will then be audited again by our team. If all points of the audit report have now been correctly adjusted, you have passed the certification and will receive the Trustmark. If this is not the case, we will prepare a new audit report with the points that still need to be adjusted.
Where and when is the Trustmark displayed after passing the certification?
After you have successfully completed the certification, our certification team activates your certificate. The Trustmark is then automatically displayed in your Trustbadge® and in your review profile. Please note that depending on the browser used and the update process on our servers, it may take up to one day before the Trustmark is displayed.