
Ask HN: Seals/certifications are a scam... but are they worth it? - pitdesi
We FeeFighters help SMB's save money on credit card processing. We do need some somewhat sensitive information to run our reverse auctions, like the amount of credit card receipts a company expects. We're going through the process of TRUSTe and BBB certification. It's not really much of a process, really, you pay ~$1000 they ask a few questions and you can put the seal on your site... As we know seeing what happens in the credit card processing business, there are many companies that have A+ ratings that treat their customers like crap. Until a few months ago, Ritz Carlton, Disney, and Wolfgang Puck had F ratings but Hamas had an A grade.
(see here: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/business-bureau-ritz-carlton/story?id=12151154)<p>We're doing the TRUSTe certification, and they only asked a few cursory questions... but they present case studies with a significant bump in conversion rate (trustguard has a somewhat hilarious link on their site that says "Trustguard increases conversion rate 60%). I personally have never given any credence to a security seal on a website.<p>Have you seen conversion rate increases due to the presence of a security, BBB, or Trust seal? How do people feel about the seals generally?
======
spooneybarger
We did some testing on this a couple years ago... trust-e showed no
statistically significant boost with where we placed it.

We had tested the 'hacker safe' logo ( that mcaffee since bought and renamed
). Depending on where it was placed in the order process ( it was a multiple
step process ), it either had no noticeable effect to a 15% conversion boost.

For customers outside the US, neither had any impact at all, where we tested
them. For the hacker safe logo, it had the biggest effect when placed near
product selection and when the user was entering credit card information.

I would suggest doing some serious a/b testing to figure out where the logos
should go if you get them as from my experience, placement is everything.

~~~
pitdesi
Cool... what kind of site were you testing it on? We'll do our own a/b testing
but I think it makes sense that near product selection and credit card entry
is the place for it to go. For us it'll be near where they enter sensitive
information.

~~~
spooneybarger
Health and beauty site.

Vitamins, Fish Oil, Acne Medication etc type stuff.

------
aresant
A couple of notes:

a) Placement of your seals / certifications makes a huge difference in regards
to conversion rate : [http://conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/07/proper-
placement-of...](http://conversionvoodoo.com/blog/2010/07/proper-placement-of-
trust-logos-can-make-a-huge-difference-in-conversion-rate/)

b) These certifications and seals are a necessary evil for online commerce &
the BBB has tested for us as most important.

We've found time and time again that the BBB symbol is the MOST powerful of
the seals and this is across many industries.

Consumers trust the BBB, businesses realize that the BBB is essentially like
paying Mafia protection money.

The one positive I can say, however, is that the BBB acts like a lightning rod
- angry customers will file complaints and that gives you the opportunity to
resolve those complaints often before they head to merchant processing, etc.

~~~
matdwyer
Ugh, I hate the fact that BBB charges you an extra $xxx just to put their seal
on your site, in addition to you paying their basic fees. It's extortion in my
mind, but yes, Mafia like protection

------
thrill
I've found, in the small startup I'm working with right now, that those of us
with more of a marketing and sales background think seals and stamps and
certifications are the cat's meow, and those of us with more of an engineering
background think they're just noise, and make our websites ugly.

I wouldn't trust data from the agency selling the certification - but it'd
probably cost more than the certification cost to setup, gather, and analyze
your own collection of data.

Our group expects to have a mutually beneficial relationship with certain
industry groups - we've gone to the trouble of creating our own custom designs
that contain the name of the external group to serve the place of a seal that
link to the appropriate spots on the websites of those other industry groups.
These fit the look of our site better, making our design guys happy, and kept
the marketing guys happy because they can display our relationship. Our
engineering guys still think they're mostly noise, but grudgingly admit they
probably do get peripherally noticed the same way one notices the hash marks
in a crosswalk.

------
mcherm
If someone did a study on these, I'd love to see the effect of posting a
meaningless seal. That is, a logo which was made up to LOOK like some official
seal, but which is not actually issued by any organization.

My guess is that the effect on conversion rate would be rather similar. After
all, who _actually_ knows what TRUSTe is?

~~~
spooneybarger
We did that. Swapped out the 'hacker safe' logo with one we created that just
said '100% Secure Server'. About 10% drop off at that step.

YMMV. But that 10% drop off level was still higher than with no seals at all.
In the case where we did that, it was only on step 4 of the process where we
collected credit card information.

------
noodle
i know someone that has proven through their own A/B testing that a seal (i
forget which, possibly TRUSTe) increased their conversions. not 60%, but maybe
10%.

they referred to it as the #1 change they made in testing that increased
conversions.

~~~
spooneybarger
2 biggest things we did in testing that increased conversions where.

1\. split a 1 step order process into 4-5 smaller ones. ( 40% increase at the
time ) 2\. modified pricing ( increased conversion but more importantly,
increased effective revenue, ie conversion boost offset the lower price and
then some. )

~~~
noodle
i should clarify (since i can't edit anymore) that this was/is an ecommerce
site that didn't have much wiggle room in changing prices

------
brandong
We have seen a negligible (and debatable) conversion rate increase using Trust
Guard. However, it's much cheaper than any of the alternatives- so cheap that
we opt to have it despite concrete evidence of it's success.

I agree with you in that all of these certs are a sham, but I would argue that
for many customers of standard e-commerce (especially online retail)
operations they are another thing going in your favor in attempts to appear as
a professional outfit.

I'd never put any credence in a seal, but there are many customers that may.
It's not worth a $1000/year to us, but it is worth ~$125/year.

Hope this helps!

------
joshfraser
I've been looking at this lately with my work with Torbit. One thing to keep
in mind is the performance hit you may take from including that seal. They are
usually served directly from the certification companies website and often
take multiple seconds to load. Depending on how they block the rendering of
your page, the seals could actually hurt your conversion rate just from the
performance hit.

