Survey Finds 81% of Consumers Don’t Trust Small Online Businesses

“Alessandro Hatami, managing director of PayPoint.net, says: “Small online businesses lack the resources of their larger competitors but have an even greater interest in ensuring their customers have the safest possible experience on their site.

“This situation has led to a haphazard approach to managing fraud – which is in stark contrast to what larger businesses are able to do.”

In addition, PayPoint found that among 1000 consumers, just 3 percent of online shoppers are likely to trust a small online business with their money, preferring to shop with larger online brands. A further 81 percent say they have doubt about the security credentials of small, unknown companies.”

I am sure most of this sounds familiar in these days of technology and the internet. If you own a business whether online or offline, we are sure you have asked yourself this question before, “Do my customers trust my business?” And if you haven’t asked yourself this question, then now is the time.

Two National Consumer Reports Surveys show that…

The #1 concern visitors have: Is my personal information Safe and Secure? (88% of Internet users surveyed, viewed this as “Very Important”)

The #2 concern visitors have: Can I Trust the site and the information on it? (81% of Internet users surveyed, viewed this as “Very Important”)

The #3 concern visitors have: Does the site have a good Privacy Policy? (76% of Internet users surveyed, viewed this as “Very Important”)

95% of those surveyed want access to a websites email address, street address, and phone number.

You can find these surveys at Consumerwebwatch.org

The Trust Guard Mission:

Here at Trust Guard it is our mission to not only help you answer this question but to take action on the question itself. It is not enough to simply think or worry about your websites security, it is time to do something about it.

If 81% of consumers do not trust online businesses then it is time we as business owners do something about it. It is time to give the consumer what they want, which is Trust and Confidence when ordering online.

Consumers around the world are tightening up these days with the global economic downturn. They also are smarter than ever when it comes to shopping online. Consumers are also becoming more aware and more familiar with third party trust seals and companies such as Truste, Control Scan, BBBOnline, McAfee Secure (formerly HackerSafe), and of course Trust Guard. With this being the case you need to ask yourself, “Do I provide a third party trust seal to show my visitors they can trust me?” If the answer is YES, then you are on the right track. If the answer is NO, then you need to reevaluate your business strategies.

Where’s the Value…

The next question you want to ask yourself is, “Where is the best value of security and third party verification seals?”

At Trust Guard we know from 100’s of tests that More Trust = More Conversions. With this in mind, you want to establish the highest level of trust that you can, by addressing the 3 major concerns your visitors have:

• SECURITY – Is your customers information safe?
  Do you use security technology like SSL to protect their financial and private information?
  Do you have PCI Scanning to protect your website from hackers and vulnerabilities?
• PRIVACY - Do you protect your customers privacy?
  Do you respect their information and will you keep it confidential?
  Is your Privacy Policy accurate and up to date?
• IDENTITY – Who is behind your website?
  Is your company address, phone number, and email displayed on your site?
  Has this information been verified by a 3rd party?

All of this can be accomplished by applying the Trust Guard Multi-Seal package that includes PCI Scanning which is our best value. You can find out more about all the packages at

>> http://www.trust-guard.com/trust-guard-seals-s/1.htm

Here is an example of what you get with this package:

Trust Guard is pleased to announce PCI Scanning Services for online business owners around the globe. We are proud to be the first company ever to offer both Daily and Quarterly PCI Scanning services, along with the famous website verification seals. The best part about Trust Guard’s PCI scanning services is that the prices will be half of its competitors such as McAfee Secure and Control Scan.

PCI Scanning Pricing

Daily PCI Scanning plus seals – $47/month or $497/year

Quarterly PCI Scanning plus seals – $297/year

(Note: You can also get PCI Scanning services and seals with the website verification seals for a massive discount Click Here to find out more!)

Trust Guard PCI Scanning Main Features and Benefits

• Daily or Quarterly scans protect your server against 30,000 vulnerabilities
• ASV certified PCI Scanning combined with Trust Guard’s Website Verification adds more credibility
• No software or programs to download or install
• Automated scanning with email notifications so you’re always up-to-date
• Professional PCI support available to help you with your compliance needs
• Daily or Quarterly trust seals to provide trust and confidence to your visitors

With the Trust Guard PCI Scanning services, everything is configured in your control panel. There is nothing for you to install or download. You simply enter the domain name(s) that you need scanned and our system will run automatically, scanning either daily or quarterly depending on the option you choose. You also have the ability to run manual scans whenever you like with just the click of a button. And, if you ever need help, we have seasoned PCI experts standing by to assist you. Whenever a vulnerability is detected, you will receive an email with an explanation of the issue and detailed instructions on how to resolve it.

Protect your server and your systems

• Scan your server, shopping cart, firewalls, routers, and applications for known exploits and vulnerabilities daily or quarterly, depending on your needs.
• Receive additional security validation with integrated 3rd party website verification.

Safe and easy-to-use

• Simply enter your domain name in your control panel, then press start and we do the rest. Your systems will be scanned regularly as needed.
• There are no programs or software to download.
• Your server is scanned during off-hours for minimum impact.

Advanced Member Control Panel

• Your member control panel includes a number of innovative tools and features to give you the best chance for increased conversion, including integrated split testing, multiple seal size and color options, additional seal types (ie. Privacy and Business Verification – depending on the plan you choose), access to our Professional Privacy Policy Creator (a $97 value), and multi-account management options.

Informative reports

• Receive an email report every time a scan is run so you’re always up to date on what is happening.
• Log into your member control panel for instant access to both detailed and executive reports on every scan ever performed on your server.

Up-to-date security

• We continually add new vulnerabilities to our system to ensure that your server is protected.
• Your server is tested against 30,000 known vulnerabilities.

PCI Scanning can be a very difficult service to understand and that is why Trust Guard has put together some user friendly and simple ways to understand what, why, how, and when. A great article by our CEO, Scott Brandley about these very questions you might have can be found at http://www.trust-guard.com/PCI-Scanning-s/65.htm.

Now is the time to start building trust and confidence with your online customers by becoming secure on a daily basis with Trust Guard PCI Scanning services!

Scott: Hi, this is Scott, with Trust Guard. I’m here today with Paul Young, one of the founders of Skybound software. You can find their website at Skybound.ca. I’m going to let him give a little bit of background about who he is, his company, and we’ll go into some of the results he’s had with Trust Guard, and his experiences.

Paul: Scott, thank you for having me on the show. I am going to say hi to everybody. As you said, I’m Paul Young. I’m from Skybound software. We’re a software company. We specialize in making tools for making things. Right now, we only have one product, which is called Stylizer. Stylizer is a CSS that focuses strongly on productivity and visual control. Hopefully, in the future, we’ll have others, but right now, we just have the one.

A little bit of history about our company, I started Skybound with my brother, Andrew, because it seemed like the natural thing to do. Computers have been part of our lives for basically as far back as I can remember. Our family got our first computer, which was actually an IBM 8088, back in 1981, which kind of got the ball rolling.

When Skybound started, exactly, is hard to pinpoint. Software was kind of the thing that Andrew and I had always done throughout high school, as a way to make money, under a variety of different websites and different names. When I left high school is probably when we started going fulltime into Skybound. We came up with the name Skybound. We tried quite a few products over the years. We eventually decided to focus on building tools for building things because that is what we had done for so long, is make things. Now we have one product, which is Stylizer. We’re doing very well. We’re going to be moving into a new office shortly, thanks to the help of Trust Guard. That’s where we’re at right now.

Scott: You have a very nice-looking site. Whoever designed it, kudos to them. Tell me, what were some of your initial thoughts about trust seals, or why did you decide to look into trust seals, to add to your site?

Paul: I figured out, and in many cases the hard way, that if you want to be successful in business, you can’t leave any stone unturned. Having said that, I had seen other trust seals on other websites. It seemed like everybody else has it so why don’t we have it. I looked at the usual suspects, ScanAlert, Hacker Safe (now McAfee Secure). Actually, because our credit card processing company was running a promotion, what we thought was a promotion, with them at the time.

I phoned them up and talked to the saleswoman there, but it really felt like I was getting the smoke and mirrors treatment from them. I couldn’t justify spending all that money. They seemed to have a little bit of confidence in their product, but it didn’t really seem like the right business decision, not that we’re not willing to invest in our company because we are, but it just didn’t seem like the right business decision.

The impression they gave me was that the security seal business was the typical scenario where the sales person calls up the purchasing department to book an interview, and the sales person goes down, gives a ten-minute PowerPoint pitch on the benefits of security seals, and all that. The purchasing department, which is made up of people who don’t know a whole lot about the industry, decide to buy the security seals and that’s how it goes.

As I said, I don’t leave any stone unturned. I did a little more research and I came across Trust Guard. Trust Guard offered the built-in conversion testing, the double your money-back guarantee, which I think were the two things that really sold me. The double your money-back guarantee, not necessarily I was trying to double my money back, but it seemed like the double your money back was projecting confidence. I was attracted to that confidence it projected.

Scott: What did you think – you said the other thing was split testing. Have you used split testing or heard about it previous to that?

Paul: I haven’t really used it a whole lot, probably a lot less than I would have liked. We did a little bit of work with Google Website Optimizer. It’s not exactly the best system out there. It beats the five, ten, twenty thousand dollar systems that are out there.

For anybody that doesn’t know what split testing is, it’s a system where fifty percent of the visitors to your website are sent one version of your website. The other fifty percent of the visitors are sent the other version of your website. You track which version of the website that does better, the one that does better is the one you keep, the one that doesn’t do as well is the one as you get rid of.

Scott: With Trust Guard, we use split testing. What we do, as you’re aware, we actually show fifty percent of the customers the Trust Guard seals, and the other fifty don’t see anything. That’s how you can see if the Trust Guard seals are being effective for you. You were intrigued by that, obviously.

Paul: I was, but the one thing I think I was really intrigued by was the fact that we didn’t have to set it up. That was one of the things that were deterring me from ScanAlert. I was going to have to set up the system on my own. I didn’t really want to have to do that. It was like this pain I was avoiding, but Trust Guard offered that built in. I said, “Okay, I’m not going to have to do that myself, so it looks like a pretty good offer.”

Scott: It’s pretty simple, you click a button and put a piece of code on your thank you page, and you’re done. Great, so you started the split test. What did you think was going to happen?

Paul: I had, actually, no idea. I’m generally pretty pessimistic, so I wasn’t really expecting anything, although, we did get a fifty-nine and quarter percent conversion. We’ll say sixty percent increase in sales. That’s absolutely unbelievable. I don’t think there is any businessperson out there who wouldn’t be interested in increasing their conversions by sixty percent.

Scott: Definitely, the numbers I have here are your conversion rate, without the seals, was 2.32%. With the seals, it was 3.71%. That is with a ninety-five percent confidence interval. It is some pretty amazing results. We actually have quite a few clients that get similar results, but the split testing software really helps us to actually prove that it’s working for our customers, which they love and we love to share.

Paul: One other thing that I would like to mention is that my initial idea, I guess, about security seals, was that really the only people that it would help – help to the thirty percent increase or forty percent increase, sixty percent increase, are people or companies that had, generally, poorly-designed websites. There wasn’t really a whole lot of confidence that the visitor had in the website anyway.

Our website, obviously, is not designed like that. It’s very well designed. My impression was, “How much more trustworthy can our visitors be,” but clearly, that was wrong. There was a lot to be gained in that regard.

Scott: You have a really good point. I think one of the reasons why it was so effective is because you took the advise that we give people on our split testing page, where we recommend they place the seals in certain places. You actually put multiple seals right on the checkout page where they’re making that final buying decision.

Paul: There’s absolutely no way they’re going to miss it.

Scott: I think that really helps people feel more confident about your company, because they can see that your security has been verified, that your privacy policy has been verified, your business has been verified. They feel a lot more comfortable pushing that “buy” button. Were there any other thoughts, or any last comments you’d like to leave with our members?

Paul: I’ll just say that I would recommend Trust Guard to people who are considering it. I have recommended Trust Guard. At a sixty percent conversion increase that we got, even at a ten percent conversion increase, nobody says, “I’m going to start an eCommerce website and we’re going to be accepting credit cards directly on the site. Do you think it’s worth it to invest in an SSL certificate?” Nobody says that. I think that trust seals, after seeing this, should be placed at a similar level of importance. It shouldn’t be a business decision. It should just be the thing that you do.

For more information on how you can start increasing your websites conversion rate today, go to www.Trust-Guard.com!