SSL-certificates for online stores: a necessary addition for online businesses

You have opened the online shop of your dreams, which already brings you some income, but you are trying to find ways to make it more profitable. What opportunities are there to increase the revenue that you’re receiving? One of the most popular solutions is an SSL-certificate, which will allow you to sell more by increasing the confidence of potential buyers. An SSL-certificate brings three advantages:

• It increases your income due to growing trust to your Web site;
  
• it protects from theft the personal information of your customers;
  
• it prevents the emergence of site-clones (or, as they are otherwise known, phishing sites) *.
  

* True only for SSL-certificate with a green address bar (EV-certificates).

SSL is a modern standard for virtually all online financial transactions.

Online stores are very difficult to imagine without using SSL, because they conduct various financial transactions that require entering sensitive user data. These sites are very vulnerable to theft of passwords, so they must be always be protected by SSL.

Professionals recommend protecting the entire online store, not just its individual pages with important data. This approach gives a lot of advantages:

• Users immediately see that your site is protected - your browser has a lock and/or the green bar with the company's name
  
• No one can steal valuable information from your customers (credit card numbers, postage addresses, user's personal data, etc.)
  
• Access to visitor statistics for analytical services will be closed (no one will know which pages your customer visited, what they bought, etc.)
  

Which SSL-certificate to choose?

Today there is a wide range of SSL-providers: Symantec, Comodo, Thawte, etc. If you are selling premium products, you might want to take advantage of Symantec Secure Site Pro with EV SSL-certificate. In addition to it you will get a special Norton Secured Seal trust logo, which is a sign of quality and security for any online store. It should be placed on all pages of the online store, as well as next to the login form, in order that the visitor understands that the site is under perfect protection.

Why is it so important to display the trust logo?

The main advantages of displaying trust logo on site:

• Users see that your site is secure, and therefore enter their personal information and make purchases.
  
• Norton - a recognisable brand, which in the minds of many people is associated with security software. The «Norton Secured» logo attracts additional trust from users.
  
• If a user hovers the mouse cursor over the logo, he will be able to see all the information about your company and the protective tools used on your website.
  

If you need a cheaper solution, then in that case you can have the Thawte EV-certificate or a Comodo EV-certificate. This EV-certificate allows the site to display a padlock, a green address bar in the browser, as well as the company name in it. The user will immediately notice a visual signal and realise that the site can be trusted, because it is protected.

OV SSL-certificate (Organisation Validation) is not recommended for use in online shops. This type of certificate allows you to put a padlock in the address bar of your browser, clicking on which will display information about the company. However, not all users are technically savvy enough to browse information about the company. Therefore, they might simply refuse to purchase on your site.

DV SSL-certificates allow you to display the lock in your browser, but do not contain data about your company. Thus, you will achieve the security of transactions on the site, but cannot defend against data theft via phishing sites. Hackers can get quite the same DV-certificate and create a fake copy of the online store, directing users to it and obtaining their data.

For these reasons, we strongly recommend to all owners of online stores to purchase EV SSL-certificate, which bears numerous marketing benefits and can reliably protect a site from intruders.

With this, the visitor receives a non-verbal sign saying that the site should be trusted (green is always associated with a permit). The user can immediately see who owns the site, because the company name is displayed in the address bar of their browser. The trust of visitors to the site will grow, and so the site’s sales grows too. Statistics show that sales growth could be up to 10-40%.

Now some maths. Let' say your website sales reach 100,000 euros a month. We assume that sales growth will be 1% (minimum percentage). EV-certificates cost from 90 euros per year. We get the increase in sales for the year: 

100,000 x 12 x 0.01 = 12,000 euros.

Subtract the certificate cost of 90 euro. Net profit amounts to 11,910 euros.

All of this indicates that the SSL-certificates are a very profitable investment which quickly pay for themselves.

Another important factor in sales growth is brand awareness. The Baymard study showed that people are more likely trust the VeriSign (Now Symantec).

Using standard EV-certificate, we have a profit of 11,910 euros.

Now let's look how to change the situation with the using of Symantec certificate. The initial conditions are the same. The difference is that Symantec is more prestigious and recognisable brand in comparison with many other certification authorities, and this EV-certificate costs 630 euro/year. In this case we get more visitors trust and higher likelihood that a person will complete their purchase.

In the case of Symantec with an increase in sales of at least 3%, we get the following:

100,000 x 12 x 0.03 = 36,000 euros.

Subtract certificate costs - 630 euro. As a result, we have increased sales by 35,370 euros.