No matter what efforts you put into your online business — an impeccable website design, high-quality products, or a well-crafted marketing strategy — sales won’t happen if customers don’t trust your website. The security of your customers’ personal data, transaction information, and privacy is essential to developing trust and long-term relationships. Before choosing an eCommerce platform, it’s important to keep two requirements in mind:
- The customer must feel safe browsing the store, providing personal information, and entering payment details.
- The customer must feel that the store is run by genuine people.
Does Shopify fill these requirements — is it safe and trustworthy? Keep reading to find out what Shopify already does and what you can do to further alleviate the concerns of your customers.
Shopify’s Built-in Safety Features
As an online business owner, you have two choices when it comes to choosing an eCommerce platform: use a hosted service such as Shopify or BigCommerce, or take a more hands-on approach with an open-source service such as WooCommerce (WordPress), Magento, or Prestashop. While there are pros and cons to both hosted and open-source platforms, one major difference is that the more popular hosted platforms have many security features built in as part of the service while open-source platforms typically don’t.
At present, the best security standard for any eCommerce platform is the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). For an online store to be considered safe for consumers, it needs to comply with these requirements. There are different levels of compliance, with Level 1 PCI considered the highest security standard of the four. With Shopify’s hosted service, all plans include Level 1 PCI compliance, which features the following implemented safety measures.
- Maintain a secure network
- Protect cardholders’ data
- Implement strong access control measures
- Monitor and test networks regularly
- Maintain a vulnerability management program
- Maintain an information security policy
The use of the PCI security standard is essential in today’s online shopping environment. No stores are able to process transactions using Visa, American Express, or Mastercard without making the website and hosting PCI compliant. But is it possible to make open-source platforms, like WooCommerce, PCI compliant? It’s still possible to have the same level of security, but it requires much more time and effort on your part to implement and maintain the safety features that come standard with Shopify.
- It’s up to you to build the security infrastructure and make the site PCI compliant.
- Making self-hosting eCommerce sites PCI compliant can be expensive.
- Open-source websites need regular maintenance and manual upgrading.
Added Security with Shopify’s Whitehat Reward Program
There is an ever-increasing demand for businesses to sell online, which is why over 500,000 businesses are using Shopify as their preferred eCommerce platform. But with this demand comes an ever-increasing risk of hackers focusing their efforts on finding weaknesses within the platform’s coding. Shopify actively mitigates this issue by funding the Shopify Whitehat Reward Program.
The program handsomely rewards security researchers (whitehat hackers) who look for issues and vulnerabilities within Shopify’s system, as well as some supported apps. Researchers are encouraged to create an account and build their mock Shopify shop to test. If a genuine report is submitted, Shopify promises to acknowledge it within a day and review it within the next seven days. For the researchers’ efforts, the program promises a reward of up to $50,000 to anyone who can detect an issue within its system.
All eCommerce platforms have vulnerabilities, but not all are equipped with the ability to actively seek out and fix those vulnerabilities. By doing so, Shopify is creating a more secure platform for its users and the customer’s personal information.
SSL Certificate
As an online business owner, privacy and security of information is the bedrock on which lasting customer-business relationships are built. SSL certificates are an added layer of security that creates an encrypted connection between the website’s server and the customer’s browser, guaranteeing that communication between your store and the customer passes through a secure channel.
Besides the certificate’s primary purpose of protecting customer data, it’s important that your store have an SSL certificate for a couple reasons:
- Today’s web browsers will show warning messages when a website doesn’t have an SSL certificate or when it’s expired.
- Google ranks websites that have an active SSL certificate higher.
As a busy online business owner, it’s okay if you haven’t thought through the details of data encryption as long as the platform you’re using can ensure your business and your customers’ safety. Shopify provides free SSL certificates for all plans, and can even apply a certificate within 48 hours to domains that aren’t purchased through their system.
Read More: Creating, changing, and migrating Shopify domains
Shopify Security Apps
Shopify offers a wide range of apps to further protect your store and business’s interests, including:
Fraud Scanner
Price: $1.99–24.95 / month
Fraud Scanner identifies potentially fraudulent orders and will either cancel or place them on hold based on your preferences.
Shop Protector
Price: $4.99 / month
Shop Protector helps eliminate fraudulent accounts and inquiry messages clogging up your system without the need for unsightly CAPTCHA boxes that can negatively affect the customer’s shopping experience.
TrustedSite
Price: Free for the first 500 visits, $39–125 / month after
TrustedSite runs through a list of safety measures, checking for security loopholes using McAfee SECURE. The real benefit of using this app is the integration of McAfee’s trustmark that automatically appears throughout the checkout process, reassuring customers that their sensitive data is safe with you.
Cozy AntiTheft
Price: Free
Cozy AntiTheft prevents content theft by competitors, keeping your brand and website’s content original. The app works by disabling the visitor’s ability to copy text and images from your website no matter what type of device they’re using.
Age Check
Price: $4.95 / month
Age Check protects your business from country laws that require age verification for sensitive items like tobacco, alcohol, and adult products. While most businesses don’t require this type of safety feature, Shopify makes it easy for those that do.
Data Protection Compliance
Complying with data protection regulations such as GDPR and CCPA should be at the top of your to-do list. Even if your eCommerce business is not based in Europe, you need to abide by GDPR if you’re planning to sell in that continent. Similarly, CCPA applies to online stores that want to sell products to residents in California.
What’s the penalty for non-compliance with these rules? The two regulations empower authorities to impose hefty fines on any business that violates the rules. After making the necessary preparations to comply with these regulations, you can add GDPR and CCPA badges to the site to earn the trust of the customers. There are a number of apps that can help you with both in the Shopify App Store.
Add Trust Badges to Your Store
As online sales skyrocket, the eCommerce industry is rapidly mushrooming. Unfortunately, with that comes a number of fake and fraudulent sites, aimed at skimming money from customers. Online customers have become more skeptical, often limiting their shopping to Amazon and big-box retailers, but it’s still possible to gain their trust and increase sales by adding trust badges to your Shopify store.
Shopify makes your site secure, but how do you let your customers know? One way is to use an app like TrustedSite mentioned above, but there are other ways that you can signal that you can be trusted.
| Accepted Payment Badges | Seeing reputed payment options can increase confidence and build trust. You can do this by adding PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, and other payment option badges to your store’s footer menu and checkout pages to boost sales. |
| Shopify Security Badge | Shopify offers a free badge to its users that lets you promote the PCI DSS safety features that Shopify provides for your site. |
| Third-Party Endorsements | Customers usually don’t trust a business that blows its own trumpet. What can you do to earn their trust? Request credible third-party programs to review your store and earn their trust badge (examples: BBB Accredited Business badge, Google Trusted Store badge, and more).
Third-party endorsements can also include major magazines and newspapers, books, television, celebrities, educational institutions, and even other popular cultural and industry websites. |
| Homemade Badges | Most customers don’t read the website’s fine print, so it’s important to make your own badges if you offer a strong warranty policy, return policy, or money-back guarantee. Simple trust badges that highlight these benefits can go a long way in building trust with your brand. |
Build a Trustworthy About Us Page
The About Us page lets your customers know that there’s someone real behind the curtain. The following points are a good start on building even more trust with your brand.
- Connect with the customers by addressing the pain points your products are looking to fill and present it in an honest and sincere way. This helps them to understand that you’re looking out for them rather than trying to profit off of them.
- Introduce all of the important people that make your business function. By adding faces and names to your business, it becomes human rather than just a brand.
- Include video or creative images that present the personality of your company.
Increase Security and Build Trust on Your Shopify Store
There is no such thing as too much security and trust. Shopify provides an arsenal of reliable security features, but there are additional actions you can take to further protect your site and build trust with your customers. In the end it’s all about connecting with your customers and growing sales. If you would like to learn more about how Shopify can help you, we suggest checking out our selection of best Shopify apps that can help you spend less time growing your sales.
