Do I need shared SSL?

[Buzby]

Today I had an e-mail from a client stating that they were not prepared to order from my site as their name and address were not going to be entered on to a secure page.

My payment methods are Cheque, Paypal and Nochex, so I have no real need to have a shared SSL, or do I?

Has anyone else experienced this and if so did their sales increase as a result, could I possibly be losing sales by not implementing this?

If I did opt for a shared SSL is the £100 per site or could I use it for both my sites?

Any advice would be appreciated.

Kind Regards

Jason
www.qualitysilver.co.uk
www.quality-titanium.co.uk

[pinbrook]

Paypal and Nochex are considered the poor man's solution for payment processing. They are secure so you don't need shared SSL to use them

Some people prefer to see a more robust method of payment processing such as your own SSL cert or an established PSP. Of course these methods are more expensive for the retailer but i guess this is part of credibility.

If you have a merchant acct, contact your supplier about taking internet orders and get your own SSL cert. Otherwise consider using Worldpay for processing payments.

I must admit that I tend to view sites that only accept Paypal as being second rate, ie underfunded start ups in someones bedroom. I know we all have to start somewhere, but......

[jont]

Hi Jason,

there is a similar thread on here regarding the security / encryption of names and addresses you may like to check out.

[Robalsq]

PayPal etc

Jo,

I think you are a little misguided in your approach to payment providers such as PayPal etc.
In my experience Startups find it difficult to obtain an Internet Merchant Number through their banks until you have about 6 months of trading. World Pay may want to hold onto your traded payments if you fall into a risk category ( ie the market you wish to sell in ) In my case it again was 6 months.
Many shops wouldn't be trading without this second rate payment provider.

PS. I don't work for PayPal, I just use their service

Regards

Rob

[jont]

I have to agree with Jo regarding PayPal sites. I don't dispute what you are saying and it takes time to establish a merchant account - this also adds to the lack of "robustness" Jo refers to in so much as if a site has been trading for less than 6 months it can be seen as a here-today-gone-tomorrow operation... always an issue if you are just starting out.

Using PayPal is not suited to selling certain products (expensive) and I would certainly be very wary of buying say HiFi or other electricals online if the site only offered PayPal. Alas with the popularity of Ebay and PayPal for people selling junk from their attic PayPal can now seem like a poor mans choice (although they charge through the nose so you can't be too poor)

[pinbrook]

I agree with your comments Rob - it can be difficult to get a merchant acct, but the original question was "is Paypal putting customers off?"

to which i replied "probably"

Yes for some people is all they can use, it gives them a start....

Some surfers/customers look at a site and want to see reasons why they should order from it, ie will they get their goods, will their credit card details be safe, does the site look credible etc etc

a site that only accepts Paypal doesn't necessarily give you that assurance, after all if a bank won't give you a merchant acct then the business doesn't have history.... chicken and egg

Note: I've just re-read the original question - which is do I need SSL to make Paypal secure? No you don't, Paypal is secure, some people just aren't happy using it

[garyhay]

Jo / Jont

We switched to paypal at the end of last year and to be honest it has not made any difference. We have the business account and in Actinic this works the same way as any other PSP and no setup/renewal charges.

As we dont do too much CC orders it made sense to at least give it a try.

With ebay growing in all directions I fail to see why people would still be put off by using paypal as it's widely know to the public in a lot of countries. I have evn had clients say "oh we use Paypal and they charge you" "We have paid these costs as well" great I say.

Paypal was also the easiest to setup with our gallery (photos) site as we never needed to rewrite the whole program to do it. Still had bugs and security issues but any kind of trading online or in the high street has that.

I still advise clients to use a traditional PSP and will until I have used PP for a bit longer.

[Buzby]

The original question was, does it put customers off not having a secure page when they enter their address details? This is regardless of whether you use Paypal or Worldpay, as most sites that I have seen using Worldpay do not have a padlock on the address page either.

The original concern from a client was that she would not order from me because I didn’t have a padlock on the screen that asked for her contact details. She was however happy to pay using Paypal.

Kind Regards

Jason

[fergusw]

Jason,
I think your problem lies more with the customer perception of your online site and business than with the actualy web process itself.
Sure, their address details currently travel unencrypted from their browser to the webserver where actinic then encrypts them into the .ord file however so is their IP address, the browser they use, their operating system, the website URL they were viewing before they entered your site not to mention the cookie embeded on their machine from your site.
It sounds more like an issue of trust and paranoia. An issue which could be resolved or at least improved simply by the content of your site.
A good website encourages trust from a shopper, even the paranoid shoppers. Clear visible company details (remain transparent to shoppers) with contact details and especially telephone numbers help a lot. A professional design and some well worded text can often make a huge difference.
You can also shout about the security of PayPal and scream about how many millions use it everyday and so on.
It's also good to bear in mind the old adage "You can't please all of the people...."

To answer your query more succinctly, "Does having no encryption at the address gathering page put people off?"
Depends on the people!
You should do all you can to put them at ease. They should be more worried about the port scanners and keystroke trackers grabbing their CCard details direct than someone getting their address. Does this customer have their details in the Phone book? Is their business listed in Yellow pages? Are they that protective about their address?

Just an opinion!

[Robalsq]

Hi-Jack

Jason,

I must apologise for hi-jacking your thread.

I'm sure there are more people in this forum who can help with your question.
" In order to boost confidence from customers should you take the step to opt for a shared SSL rather than just rely on Paypals and Nochex SSL after the customer has checked out "

It seems to me than any method of showing the customer that any details they put on your site will be secure for the recipient it was intended is likely to improve sales?

Are there any low cost SSL methods out there?


Regards

Rob

[Buzby]

I must say that I agree with what Fergus has said above. I was just concerned that this customer had taken the effort to inform me of why they were not purchasing from me.

I have sent a reply to the customer informing them how we can process their order offline and have not had a reply from them.

Incidentally, I visited the customers own website, which also does not have a secure page for customers to enter their details.

I am now not too concerned with this as we are very busy and less than 2% of our carts are abandoned.

Kind Regards

Jason

[jont]

If people take the effort to email me with reasons they are not ordering it usually boils down to the fact they are probably not going to buy anyways and are just trying to have a pop or wind me up - probably some underground sport.

As Fergus says, there are so many ways to find someones address other than an unecrypted website that it is a poor excuse to use - if they are that bothered then they should not be using their own address to start with.

If people are put off due to any reason and genuinely want to order they will phone the order through or send an email asking for me to contact them which we are always happy to do.

[webyourbusiness]

If people take the effort to email me with reasons they are not ordering it usually boils down to the fact they are probably not going to buy anyways and are just trying to have a pop or wind me up - probably some underground sport.

I hate orange websites - I'll happily tell the owners too...

on the original question - SSL on checkout is the icing on the cake - if you have several different secure checkout options, then add something in your footer message that your PAYMENT details will be asked for after transferring to a secure PAYMENT page.

Putting the whole checkout on SSL is not that big a deal (see my other posts regarding dedicated SSL certs) - and if you need to go that route, it's often cheaper to get your own SSL rather than a shared one.

As regards PayPal - we see a significant number of paypal purchasers - and we have both secure credit card and paypal as payment options - although we're in the USA, not the UK, I'd reckon it to be between 25 and 30% of payments - FROM INDIVIDUALS - are with PayPal. Business 2 business are less than 5% PayPal, and those I would classify as almost all "micro" businesses - almost certainly less than 5, certainly less than 10 staff.

So.. PayPal - I'd always recommend having it - but as an ADDITIONAL payment method. If you have credit cards at all, use a gateway, or SSL to capture for manual processing - if you don't have a merchant account - get one - at almost ANY cost - it's going to hurt you in the eyes of SOME - read lack of credibility as Jo pointed out.

fwiw - I don't shop at sites that ONLY offer budget checkout methods (2checkout, paypal, nochex etc).

hth

Greg

[jont]

I hate orange websites - I'll happily tell the owners too...

Good job we binned the oh-so-trendy-a-few-years-back orange and went blue