Payment 'jump off' - Do you lose sales?

[badass101]

Hi all,

In the process of setting up the final details on our new e-commerce site, which is already live and working on a trickle of organic traffic.

Before we splurge some serious money on advertising, I wanted to bounce something off you and see what your opinions were.

We've signed up to Protx as our merchant enabler, using their VSP Form product.
When the customer comes to pay, they step through the order process and then 'jump off' to the Protx servers.
The payment form on Protx has our logo, plus some text about how you're on Protx's secure server, etc. but I wondered how many (if any) sales we can expect to loose because of the 'jumping off' to another site?

Personally, being a seasoned online shopper and web veteran, I know exactly what's happening and have no problems with this at all. Neither do my friends.
However, not everyone is as experienced (or confident) with shopping online.

What do you think?

[ectect]

The flipside is true when ordering on a site you've never heard of before - I'm personally very wary of sites with their own (or shared) SSL certificate as I just don't know how of if the CC details are stored, personally I'd rather go through Protx or whoever in that case.

For established stores it makes sense and it has to be said, it does look more professional when you don't have to leave the store - swings and roundabouts really.

[chodges84]

I agree with ectect 100%.

I've always wondered the same thing actually. I use Worldpay and the same thing happens. But customers seem to know and trust them. A lot of people don't say 'I paid using a Credit or Debit card', they say I paid using Worldpay.

I don't know if Protx are as well known in that respect, but I have a new site I'm working on, and plan on using Protx.

To be honest, I'd much rather pay on a site I hadn't heard of using Protx or Worldpay than I would using the merchants own SSL certificate.

But then again, as I (and most ecom owners) know how it all works, so we can't be classed as an 'Average customer'.

[badass101]

Fair point about the shared or site owned SSL.
You can never be sure if they are just dumping your CC data into a shared MySQL server.. :-S

I think the issue is branding. Worldpay have done a good job with branding, helped in part by some big names using them as payment processors.

I would think that in a survey of 100 online shoppers more would know Worldpay than Protx.
Still, Protx seems to work well, is cheap, and does the job.
I'm sure the jump-off from Paypal would be much higher!

[leadegroot]

I have always had good results with telling people what will happen:
'clicking this button will allow you to make payment with our secure partner XYZ'
and sure enough, when they click that button there they are, just like they expected. :)

[Raymond]

I hate to be the odd ball here. I am a frequent online shopper and I always leave the site when it redirects me to another payment page (except for paypal). No specific reasons, it just doesn't feel right.