3 Good Reasons to Get SSL Before the Shopping Season Gets Revived Up


This year’s holiday sales are predicted to ring in at more than $123 billion marking some of the best growth rates in recent years. Optimism is up, and this year features the longest-possible number of days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, 32 to be exact. If you’re like most eCommerce business owners, you want to grab more than your fair share of this hearty pie.

Source: Statista and eMarketer
Source: Statista and eMarketer


You Need Every Advantage Online

While shoppers are feeling good about spending this holiday season, they have lots of competing option. You need to do everything you can to make it easier and more convenient for shoppers to buy from you. Desktops still account for most sales, but mobile is gaining. It’s predicted that 44 percent of 2018 holiday spending will be done using a mobile device.

Source: Adobe Digital Insights: 2017 Holiday Recap
Source: Adobe Digital Insights: 2017 Holiday Recap



You might also be surprised to learn about a trend known as Black November that shows more sales happen in November than December. That means the time to make sure your website earns instant trust is now or you’ll be missing out on the bulk of online shopping. And, the fastest way to gain immediate visitor trust is by having the right SSL certificate.

Here are three smart reasons to make sure your site is all dressed up and ready for the holidays with an SSL certificate:

Trust = Sales—You should be aware by now that all the major browsers are slapping a big red “Not Secure” warning on all websites still being served up over HTTP. All SSL certificates provide encryption and add that comforting ‘S’. Seeing HTTPS puts visitors at ease, so they click through to that shopping cart.

PCI Compliance Matters—Failure to satisfy PCI compliance requirements, one of which is SSL, can results in credit card companies taking away your ability to accept credit cards. Talk about a holiday nightmare.

Confidence Increases Conversion—Encryption is a must but validating your business identity with an Extended Validation (EV) SSL certificate is even better.

Your Identity & Reputation Are Your Business

It should be clear that encrypting your website with at least a Domain Validation (DV) SSL certificate is a must to maintain your online reputation and not have your site labeled as Not Secure. But your goal this holiday season goes beyond looking trustworthy. You want to turn visitors into customers. And, to do that, you need an SSL certificate that does more than simply validate you own the domain. You need one that authenticates your business identity. EV SSL certificates provide the highest level of validation and include clearly visible trust symbols, such as the green address bar, that your visitors will instantly recognize.

Don’t think EV can make that much of a difference? These statistics make for a compelling story:

  • Abandonment rates can soar as high as 75%. A Baymard Institute study reports on average 69 percent of customers would abandon shopping carts if they thought the website was unsafe.
  • A report by DevOps shows completed transactions increased by 10 percent when the green address bar was present.
  • In a Tec-ED survey, 100% of participants noticed the green address bar, with 97% being comfortable enough to enter their credit card information. In fact, 77% said they’d be hesitant to shop on a website without an EV SSL certificate.

Want to minimize shopping cart abandonment and make this a record holiday season? EV is the way to go. That’s probably why e-commerce giants like Apple and PayPal protect their websites with EV.

Christmas Day, the peak buying season, is coming, so get your website protected now.