Product Sourcing News   

Secure and Trusted Websites Increase Sales

BY: Colette Marshall
President, WorldwideBrands.com

You probably know that credit card processors must comply with very strict security when handling a person’s credit card and bank account information – and so must you! But more importantly, your customer wants to feel safe and secure when they’re handing over their credit card information. It’s one of the biggest reasons for high bounce rates off an order page.

Here are a few quick questions you can ask your self to check your site is trustworthy:

Question 1: Is your privacy policy clearly stated?
Question 2: Is your return policy clearly stated?
Question 3:You should not store your buyer’s credit card information on your system. If you have to store the information for any reason, are you comfortable with your own level of security?

Question 4: Are you PCI Compliant?
Many Merchant Account Processors require you to use a service that constantly checks and validates the security of the buyer’s information that is captured by your shopping cart. This is known as PCI security protection.

If you process your customer’s credit card details through a shopping cart on your site, and you do not yet have PCI Protection, we recommend that you contact your payment processing provider and check if it is a requirement with them for you to have PCI protection.

Worldwide Brands Members: Login to your Member Center to watch the special McAfee PCI Compliance video that explains PCI requirements. We provide a direct number to someone you can ask your questions too. There’s also a special discount offer for members only.

Question 5: Are you testing for common threats or “back doors’ holes in your website where hackers could get customer information? Ask your webmaster, what they’re doing to check the site routinely. There are services such as McAfee SECURE that will test you site daily for you and recommend the fixes that need to be made.

Worldwide Brands Members: Worldwide Brands invited Eric Christenson from McAfee® to answer some of the questions we've been asked about how McAfee SECURE™ Service works. Login to your member center to view the video . There’s also a special discount offer for members only.

Question 6: What type of security lock symbol are you using on your shopping cart that your customer recognizes?
Question 7: Does the url for your shopping cart indicate security? In other words, does it start with https://

Take a moment to concentrate on the trust and safety of you website and make the appropriate changes. You will definitetly notice an increase to your conversion rate.