Secure E-Commerce
Feb 1, 2008
The main concern people have when shopping online is security. Everybody knows how easy it is to grab information over the internet and this is the main reason why online shopping is taking a while to become popular. People are afraid to give out their bank or credit card information over the internet. They are afraid of people being able to hack into their computers and steal their identities. So what does this mean for you, the ecommerce businessperson?
You want to make your customers feel safe when they use your ecommerce site. You want to assure them that your site is secure and make sure they know about the various safety precautions you have in place to protect their financial information as it transmits from their keyboard to your servers.
Did you know that ecommerce is actually a much safer method of consumerism than traditional commerce? Here is an example: When you pay with your credit card at a restaurant, your card is run through before you assign how much you want to leave as a tip. You write in the tip amount when the signature receipt comes back to you and when you do this, you are basically acknowledging that you are putting your faith into your server or the restaurant manager to put in the amount you have written down and nothing else. Usually the number of your card is printed all the way out on the signature receipt. Anybody who has access to the receipts has access to your credit card number, etc. When you shop via ecommerce, the only people to see your financial information are you and the business to which you are making a payment.
The best way to ensure the privacy of your customers’ information is through Secure Socket Layers and Digital Certificates. Typically these two items go together. In fact, the Digital Certificate is what confirms to customers that the website they are transmitting to uses Secure Socket Layers (or SSL) when it receives or transmits data Make sure that any page that takes in personal or financial information from your customers is protected by Secure Socket Layers and has a Digital Certificate. Typically your ecommerce website will have these built into your hosting package, but you will want to check with your hosting company to make sure.
Another trusted method of securing the transactions on your ecommerce site is by using Verisign. Verisign is a very trusted and widely recognized SSL Certificate host. Many businesses use verisign to obtain their customer’s financial information. The security on verisign is known world wide and is very trusted.
You should always have a page on your site that is dedicated to letting your customers know exactly how you secure the information that is processed through your site. When you use Digital Certificates, SSL and Verisign that the information you are getting is accurate and is not likely pirated from someone. Using Ecommerce security measures helps everybody feel better about ecommerce and its growing popularity.Posted bySite Admin at 1:53 PM
