E-Commerce trustmarks

April 7, 2010 in All posts

Hello! It’s been a manic few weeks, so apologies for the lack of updates. Here’s something to mull over:

As a regular reader of the eConsultancy blog, the issue of e-commerce trustmarks and their efficacy has become a favourite point of contention of mine.

Trustmarks are small graphics provided by various companies that are meant to increase shoppers’ confidence in the online purchase process. Having read various accounts from both sides of the fence, I’m placing my stake in the ground firmly with this blog post.

Read on to find out where it’s stak’ed!

(is that even a word? it is now.)

The question

Do e-commerce trustmarks actually increase user confidence or conversion rates online?

The providers

There are a few of varying providence, but the main ones are Verisign, McAfee and TRUSTe. There are others, but these are the key players.

The arguments in favour

Predictably, the providers of these trustmarks claim they work in terms of reducing shopping cart abandonment and increasing conversion rates. Various case studies exist, but I’ve picked out a Verisign example that claims various stats such as:

• 6 out of 7 online shoppers rate a credible 3rd party trustmark as an important influence on their willingness to conduct business online
• 2/3rds admitted abandoning a shopping cart process due to security concerns about a website
• 90% said they would have completed if there’d been a trustmark in place
• 4 out of 5 users surveyed were familiar with the Verisign seal, and that the existence of the trustmark would give them confidence to complete an online purchase

In one particular case, a Verisign customer claimed their IE 7 users experienced an 8.6% drop in shopping cart abandonment after implementing the Verisign SSL certificate & trustmark.

This is all very compelling – and of course it is: these companies are trying to sell you a Verisign seal (or extended SSL certificate, or whatever). And you can’t argue with the stats…

…or can you?

The arguments against

Let’s take the obvious point for a moment: the research above isn’t verified or linked to, so you can’t check it out for legitimacy.

Similarly, there’s absolutely zero indication as to what kind of profile was surveyed: it could, for all we know, have been carried out in the Verisign canteen – in which case, 4 out of 5 people being familiar with Verisign is a shockingly low result. Additionally, the people surveyed could have been taken from a pool of users who are regular online shoppers, and who are openly security conscious/aware of factors such as SSL, padlocks, green security bars etc. In this case, it would not surprise me if the recall & recognition for 3rd party trustmarks was high.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not claiming Verisign are lying – far from it – I’m merely pointing out that it’s scarily easy to massage statistics or present them in such a way that supports a theory when, in fact, the real results did not.

Let’s also think about the questions:

6 out of 7 online shoppers rate a credible 3rd party trustmark as an important influence on their willingness to conduct business online

Good…but what if the only options in the survey had been “Important” or “Not important”? Clearly everyone’s gonna go for the former.

As I’ve mentioned before, eConsultancy have carried a couple of articles about trustmarks, and some of the key takehome points on there were:

• An good quality and slick checkout journey is more effective than a trustmark for increasing confidence
• Sticking images on your site to say it’s secure doesn’t mean it’s secure (from the perspective of a user who doesn’t know any better)
• They’re effectively adverts for those companies supplying the trustmarks
• They could perhaps draw unwarranted attention to the risks of shopping online
• They increase the load time of a page, particularly at peak times

Additional

I spotted a recent article from another blog about ‘Effective trustmark placement‘. They cited a number of ‘effective’ examples which, quite frankly, I dsiagree with:

#1: Recent Useit study proves that users spend 69% of time looking at the left half of the screen. Therefore these trustmarks are probably ignored – especially since they’re cramped and small, and not even in the buy/cart process.

#2:  This homepage is not particularly well-optimised in terms of messaging and hierarchy, and therefore again I’d imagine the trustmark isn’t even noticed. In fact, the only reason why it might be is because it’s next to a livid red image advertising a free gift.

#3: Looks like it’s been stuck on as an afterthought.

Conclusion

I’m yet to be convinced that trustmarks are a worthwhile investment…

…although I am perhaps more open to the theory that perhaps the green SSL bar AND a well-designed checkout process would yield good results (rather than just a trustmark on its lonesome).

Tags: design, trustmarks