Online stores are going shopping themselves. They are buying SSL certificates en masse

The number of stores on the Shoper platform with an SSL certificate has increased by as much as a third in the past year. No wonder - the use of this tool is becoming essential for doing business online. Experts calculate what is lost by an e-store that does not yet have one.

The best protection to feel safe in a public place is one that does not impede normal functioning and is not conspicuous. However, it is visible and discreetly present at all times. It's the same on the web - the padlock symbol in the browser address bar doesn't catch your eye, but it's easy to find if necessary to make sure the page you're opening is safe. This is important if you are considering sending your name, address or credit card number through the site in a moment. The padlock and "https" at the beginning of the page address mean that the store uses an SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate, a tool that encrypts data and protects it from falling into the wrong hands.

Shopera's data shows that more and more merchants are installing them. In 2018, the number of stores on this platform using SSL certificate security increased by 33 percent.

- In last year's Gemius report, one in four respondents declared that online shopping for them was completely safe. This was a huge increase over the previous year. It seems that we are getting better at recognizing whether a site on the web is safe, notes Sergiusz Olszowy, Senior e-commerce Specialist at Shopera. - Arguably, this is partly an "effect of RODO" and a credit to the media's take on the topic of our personal data online. This would explain why there is such a rapid increase in the number of e-tailers who buy or renew their website certificate," comments Sergiusz Olszowy.

Why should an online store have an SSL?

Shopera experts point out that in addition to taking care of the image and maintaining the trust of shoppers, the SSL certificate opens up a number of opportunities crucial to the e-shop. Here are the 5 most important ones.

1. modern payment methods

Only 41 percent of online shoppers already prefer to pay cash on delivery, according to last year's Gemius report. Not surprisingly. It usually costs the most and generates several difficulties, especially in terms of returns. That's why quick transfers via special online services have now become much more popular. An SSL certificate is required to activate such a form of payment.

2. no browser warnings

The most popular browser in Poland and the world, Google Chrome, as well as Mozilla Firefox, Opera, now warn against sites that do not use an SSL certificate and contain text entry fields. Safari will soon start doing so as well. This means that 90 percent of a store's potential customers will learn from their favorite Internet exploration program that a particular website is "unsafe." According to a Shopera survey conducted in 2016, most users abandon their purchases after reading such a message.

3. better positioning

Even greater than Google Chrome is the popularity of the Google search engine, which is used by more than 95 percent of Internet users in Poland. For many e-consumers, it is the first and primary method of exploring the web, and they start their shopping not by looking at the home pages of stores, but by searching for specific products. Google has already confirmed several times - including on its blog - that sites with an SSL certificate get extra "points" from the search engine's algorithm, allowing them to be higher in search results.

4. advertising campaigns with giants

Merchants looking to take advantage of promotional campaigns and place a link to their store at the top of search results regardless of positioning will also hit a limitation. This is because this is another field where Google is using its dominant position to force the use of an SSL certificate. Without it, they won't be able to take advantage of search advertising. Facebook also has a similar policy, requiring an SSL certificate to conduct both advertising and sales activities on the site.

5. financial security

Software manufacturers issuing SSL certificates to e-shops (that is, de facto installing a tool to protect sensitive data in them) guarantee its effectiveness. These assurances are not lip service, as they are also followed by practice. For example, Certum, which is responsible for SSL for stores on the Shoper platform, pledges to pay users between 200,000 and 1 million euros if their technology proves unreliable. The chance of getting this money is actually slim - SSL certificate security has never yet been broken.

- Like an e-commerce platform ourselves, we also encourage the use of SSL, We do this both directly by allowing stores to purchase them conveniently from a good provider and indirectly by offering a set of sales support applications that require an up-to-date SSL certificate to function. Combined with global trends, this has already resulted in 75 percent of the stores on our platform using this form of data security," notes Sergiusz Olszowy, Shopera's Senior e-commerce Specialist.