How Prominent Are Your Credit Card Images

Can cc images aid in trust creation and conversion?

[joethejoe]

After being inspired by the "Does Your Buy Button Suck?" post by hannamyluv I've been tweaking. Obviously one major goal is to make the potential buyer feel as comfortable and confidant as possible as they (hopefully) go into the buying funnel.

To that end I was studying one of the big ecommerce players in a niche field.(No Brick & Mortar recognition) They are not a household name like Target or even Overstock. So they do have a trust factor to raise.

Here's the thing: They have their product action section with a large prominent buy button nicely placed in the first top three page inches. Nestled beneath the buy button and above the checkout button is a low-res gif of the big four credit cards.

I call this In Your Face credit card logos. Anyone tried this? Results? Thoughts?

[RailMan]

putting card logos on your site isn't anything to do with trust - it's a visible sign that you accept credit card payments - they should be on every page, including pure info pages, so that everyone who visits the site will see instantly that you take credit cards .....

[sniffer]

the line of credit card images on my site are almost the first thing you look at. Despite the interesting debate i the button thread, i feel this is twice as important

[jsinger]

I improved my buttons immensely and have seen... a slight DROP in sales lately. LOL (not really)

We have a tiny row of CCs shown on many of our pages. That does several things:

1) instantly shows that we sell online (not every product site does)

2) shows we take real CCs, including the prestigious, Amex and not just Paypal. We don't want to look like an Ebay store.

Yeah, I'd agree that CC images are at least as important as big red buy buttons. Back in the 90s, when shopping carts were rare, they were darn important.

[lgn1]

I never used the credit card images in the past, figuring most sites take credit cards anyways. The credit information was in the storepolicy page.

Anyways, I had this old lame "member of the bbb' imagized text all over our site. I just replaced it with the credit card logo image, so now most of our pages have it.

It will be interesting to see, if it makes any difference.

[Raymond]

As jsinger pointed out, it will instantly show that you sell online. It may seem obvious to you, but there are people who get confused on this subject.

I personally think even if the logos affect conversion, it should not be a noticable difference.

[sniffer]

Credit cards = impulse buy

especially for lower cost items eg $30-40. Our site sells mostly these items so its a good idea to display the logos which are so universal in commerce, prominantly

[shri]

lgn1, would be very interested in hearing back from you on the results of the experiment.

[derekwong28]

What I am interested in is if you do not accept AE cards, and only put up VISA and Mastercard Logos. Could that end up in detering VISA and Mastercard holders as well?

[luckychucky]

putting card logos on your site isn't anything to do with trust

I beg to differ with you there, Railman.

You're viewing this rationally, but rational thought has scarce little to do with it. cCard logos allow your site to piggyback on the brand recognition of some of the most thoroughly-advertised, widely recognized and trusted iconic symbols in the shopping universe, at absolute zero cost to you. What a deal. Deep inside your customers' hardwired lizard-brain cortices they're feeling all warm, fuzzy and trustful about you...because you're magically "affiliated"/"associated" with VISA, MasterCard, American Express and Discover. Stupid humans bwaah hah ha

[shri]

I agree, we are pretty cynical.. we know anyone can photoshop anything and put it on a site.

However, the consumer gets the impression that you are a solid company if you're working with the better known brands. Having said that, I would not expect such an impression to be created on a geocities hosted page about say... your pet cat.

Credit card images are a part of the packaging and branding. Not the most important and at the same time not to be ignored (hows that for a middle ground?)

[lorax]

>> hows that for a middle ground?

It's not middle ground shri - I think it's just a fact of doing business. It's all about perception. I strongly believe in the value of having those images on the home page, the In Your Cart, and checkout pages right along with the SSL issuer's image. I don't need to see them on the product and category or any other pages.