Verified by Visa - UK market

[jamie]

hi,

every year this question surfaces on the forums and every year people hope that the situation has improved. does anyone care to share their recent experiences? has it improved?

we currently use a payment gateway without VbV and have increasing % of fraud. the bank is keen for us to switch, but talking to competitors who have tried to switch, they have all gone back to non-secured because of the high % of checkout abandonment.

the market is UK, young and computer literate (a demograph which should really understand these things).

most abandonment comes from people not knowing how to authorise the payment, either because their cards are not signed up for VbV or they've forgotten/lost the means how to.

i haven't yet done tests myself with our customers.

many thanks for any insights!

[piatkow]

I am suprised when I come across a UK site that doesn't use VbV/MSC. My own processor doesn't give me the option not to use it.

[jamie]

we've been with the same processor for 10 years, before VbV was widespread - they let us keep the original non-secured settings.

it's a far smoother checkout experience - rather than sending customers away from your site to the bank for VbV authorization, you can keep everything internal; handle all errors; keep the same livery everywhere.

but, as mentioned above, slowly the amount of time we spend checking for fraud and the losses incurred are outweighing the benefits of a smoother checkout process.

was just interested whether anyone had switched recently and had had a positive experience?

cheers

[Novus]

Im split 50/50, from a personal point of view I think its a pain in the *** once you filled out all your info on the shopping site you faced with yet another form to fill out (which never loads that fast). If your like me an use super complicated passwords it takes another minute or so. I can certainly see why people abandon the cart when faced with this, my family are constantly forgeting there VbV password!

From a professional point of view I think its a good thing and is on my list to recoment to the board when/if a new site build get the go ahead. We dont get too many fraudulent orders but its always better to be safe then sorry.

I would be interested if ther are any comparable stats.

[jamie]

i just thought i'd update this. we are about to switch to vbv. our payment processor allows us to collect all customer card details on our server, then post these to an iframe for authentication, next to which we have clear instructions on why this extra step is necessary.

i'll start with A/B tests and hopefully switch to all orders. i'll post again in a few weeks with results.

[jamie]

just to keep this updated.

we switched today. we have quite a high volume and so far we haven't had any customer queries regarding this change or noticed any drop in orders. obviously one day is a very small sample, but still the start has been encouraging.

we have noticed a higher % of people choosing to pay with paypal though. we don't get many chargebacks through paypal, but really we are in the same boat as visa, pre-vbv), as paypal will also refund the customer first and ask questions later.

hmmm. i'll update in a while.

[enigma1]

it's a far smoother checkout experience - rather than sending customers away from your site to the bank for VbV authorization, you can keep everything internal; handle all errors; keep the same livery everywhere.

You can use some methods like iframe and pull in the form inside your site and keep the customer inside your pages. Also you can have VbV as an optional thing, may reduce the orders management somewhat.

[jamie]

iframe: yes we do exactly that. 24 hours later, sales have increased if anything. the paypal increase also seems to have been an anomaly. i think the fact that we display large VbV logos everywhere inspires more trust.

having read all the horror stories of cart abandonment, the results have greatly surpassed my expectations. and the thought of not having to get up on sunday morning to check for credit card fraud is bliss ;)

[engine]

That's interesting. I didn't6 realise it was so widespread. Tthanks for keeping us updated.

[jamie]

2 weeks down the line and actual checkout abandonment is around 12% - this is from people whose cards are not signed up for VbV and who refuse to sign up at the moment of purchase. plus a further 7% whose card was signed up but they chose not to / or didn't know how to authenticate. so approx 20% total.

of this 20%, one third then went on to try a different payment method (paypal or different card) and complete the order. so in real terms we are looking at a 13.5% abandonment.

however, the secure logos have increased the % of visitors going from the cart to the checkout process by 70% and the number of visitors actually completing the checkout process by 6%. so the upshot is still a large % increase in sales (not to mention complete peace of mind).

(there has also been a slight increase in people using paypal)