As much as people love technology, recent news headlines have often given cause for concern. When it comes to a business that interacts with its customers online, such as e-commerce stores and services, it helps to understand the fears faced by your customers.
If you do this, you can better understand them and, consequently, make efforts to reassure them. Not only will this improve the situation for your existing customers, being recognised for your online security may also help to draw in new business.
This is important given the wave of research in the last year that demonstrates strong growth in online sales. Around £11 billion was spent online in the UK during 2013, a growth of 16% from the year before.
Furthermore, this is expected to expand by 17% up to £106 billion this year, so there is a clear need to focus on online safety more.
Demonstrating via certificates
One of the best ways to demonstrate your level of safety is to actively demonstrate the measures taken. The easiest way to do this is to go for the highest certificates. When it comes to the secure sockets layer, or SSL, certain certificates will change the address bar in web browsers to green as well as displaying a padlock symbol. This is instantly recognisable to customers and puts their mind at ease.
However, not all certificates will achieve this, as you often need one with extended validation or EV. Such SSL EV certificates are available from the best specialist companies, such as Verisign and its subsidiaries firms.
Other secure methods
When it comes to e-commerce, there are a few other things you can do for added safety. Some of them are legal requirements if you want to take customer information online. If you want to take credit or debit card information online, for example, you need to obtain the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
Some of these work measures will work behind the scenes, but there are still other things customers look out for. When entering a secure page that is encrypted, the wisest customers know to look for an URL starting with https, rather than http. The extra s stands for secure and highlights some of the measures you’ve taken.
Similar to an SSL certificate, it puts customers at ease and encourages them to do business with you without fear of data theft.
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