The huge success of e-commerce sites like eBay have led to a string of websites that thrive on gullible customers looking for cheap discounts and bargains. A typical fraud is when you buy a product, and it doesn’t arrive, or you a product that is absolutely different from what arrives on delivery. Of the several ways to identify if a site is genuine, is to check for the verification sticker on a site. There are several important reasons why verification is important in international marketing:
- Establishing Confidence: E-tailing is all about building confidence in the minds of the buyers. A single breach of trust isn’t likely to hurt the buyer, as much as it hurts the reputation of the seller. A small doubt on the security the site can create a permanent scar on the customer’s mind about the site. There are several instances of companies losing business because of a small relapse of verification in international marketing.
- Increased Profits: A recent report by Symantec has found that customers often skip sites that do not display the ‘Verified’ sticker. As an e-tailer, you can ill afford to lose precious clientele. All that it requires to establish his confidence is a sticker that claims that it has been verified by VISA, SSL or Google.
Some popular seals used in verification in international marketing include:
- SSL: SSL or Secure Socket Layer is a protocol created by Netscape and used to ensure transactions between servers and browsers. To use this seal websites are required to obtain an SSL Certification that is loaded in the browser. This gives you information about the owner of the certificate, e-mail address, owner’s name, duration of validity, resource location etc As earlier said your browser is loaded with the root certificate that is obtained from well known Certification Authorities that hold information on all including revoked certificates. The SSL protocol uses a third party CA to identify one and sometimes both end of the transaction.
- VISA: Needless to say, VISA is a well-known electronic payment system. It aims to protect online transactions through Verified VISA. With Verified VISA, you have the protection that an extra layer of security is added to verify both parties to the transaction. There are several case studies that prove that verification by VISA has helped online businesses gain the trust and confidence of customers.
When people check these certifications it assures them that they can trust the site and any transactions that will take place.