VeriSign Secured Seal increases sales by 31%

VeriSign has posted a story about how one retailer increased their sales by 31% just by displaying trust seals. The retailer, VirtualSheetMusic.com, was apparently forced to remove the VeriSign site seal due to contractual issues and quickly saw a drop in sales. After putting the VeriSign site seal back up, sales increased by 31%. Fabrizio Ferrari, the site owner, commented saying,

There was no doubt about the reason for the shortfall. It was clear that our customers had grown accustomed to seeing the VeriSign Secured Seal on our site and immediately grew fearful when it wasn’t there any more. It was also clear that the VeriSign competitor’s seal wasn’t enough to assure them.

It is reassuring that the test, though publicized by VeriSign, seems to have merit considering how it was carried out:

"We ran A/B split tests to gauge the impact of the VeriSign Secured Seal’s return to our
site, and found that it accounted for 31% more sales," Ferrari reported. "Even more
startling was the impact on membership renewals, which jumped by 67%. These are
people who knew us and had been doing business with us for years, yet that wasn’t
enough to reassure them. They needed to see the VeriSign Secured Seal."

Farrari also noted that there was a 13% increase in sales when he switched to an EV SSL Certificate.

“The extra 13% is great, but I think we’ll see a far bigger impact from EV in the future
than we have so far,” Ferrari added. “That’s because less than half our customers use IE7,
and also because many people don’t yet know what it means when the address bar turns
green. But with all the publicity that VeriSign and others are providing about EV and its
importance, plus the support for it on other browsers that we’re also beginning to see,
awareness will rise rapidly and so will sales.”

You can read the full case study on VeriSign's site. The study seems fairly conclusive, but what do you think? Do your site visitors trust the site more when they see the VeriSign logo?

Originally posted on Sun Apr 13, 2008