How Shoppers Behave On HACKER SAFE Sites

To date our customers have conducted over 500 individual A/B tests of the effects of HACKER SAFE certification involving over 25 million unique visitors.

These tests encompass a broad range of sales demographics: from Generation X to the over 65 retiree; all types of products and services: from apparel to electronics to online donations; and all sizes of brands from unknowns to household names.

Conversion rate increases measured ranged from 3% to over 33%, with an average of 14%. In general the results varied based on three major criteria: Image Placement, Customer Demographic and Brand Awareness.

+ Image Placement

"Above the fold," early and often is clearly what works best. Based on aggregate totals from these studies, the average time delay between a consumer's first visit to a web site and their first purchase was over just over 19 hours. About one-third (35%) of shoppers took more than 12 hours to make a buy decision. 21% took more than three days, with 14% of these cautious shoppers taking more than one week to decide where to buy. Clearly the Internet is a competitive shopping environment. Placing the HACKER SAFE certification mark in a conspicuous, but 'tasteful' location on the home page and on every catalog page makes it more memorable resulting in customers returning to by from a safe site.

+ Consumer Demographic

Age. The younger shopper, the less the conversion increase. Young people tend to be less risk adverse, while people above 60 showed a pronounced increase in willingness to transact.

Income. The lower the average sale price to less the conversion increase, with expensive items sold to more affluent customers showed a pronounced in increase in willingness to transact.

+ Brand Awareness

Large, well known brands with dominant market share tend to measure less conversion increase, typically in the single digit range, while less well know brands show consistently larger conversion increases.