Industry Eye: Case Study - In Perfect Symphony

Problem: Virtual Sheet Music, an online retailer of traditional and classical sheet music, needed a security seal on its website to ensure consumers that it was a legitimate and reputable business.

Solution: Contracted an internet infrastructure and security services provider to place a security seal on its site.

Results: Sales have increased 31 percent in the two-plus years the security seal has been displayed, including a 67 percent increase in membership renewals. Virtual Sheet Music reports a 7,440 percent return on investment from incremental sales as a result of security enhancements to its site.

Operating in a niche marketplace since its founding 10 years ago, Virtual Sheet Music was challenged by credibility issues. Not only was it a startup, pure-play online retailer — in a marketplace that at the time bore little resemblance to the e-commerce marketplace of today — it also didn't ship tangible products to its customers.

Virtual Sheet Music operates electronically, downloading or emailing traditional and classical sheet music, as well as audio MIDI and MP3, files directly to customers' computers. Gaining the trust necessary for consumers to hand their credit card information to such an outfit was no small task.

To ease shoppers' worries, the Laguna Niguel, Calif.-based company signed a deal to display VeriSign's Secured Seal as part of another vendor's service. But in late 2006, due to contractual issues with that vendor, Virtual Sheet Music was forced to remove the VeriSign seal. Within a matter of weeks, its sales dropped 30 percent.

Proving Seal's Value
Concerned by the precipitous drop in sales, Virtual Sheet Music founder/owner Fabrizio Ferrari sought to fix the problem. This time he went directly to the source, contracting with VeriSign to restore the Secured Seal to Virtual Sheet Music's website. In fact, Virtual Sheet Music upgraded its security level to include the Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificate as well.

But Ferrari still wanted proof that a security seal, or lack thereof, could have such a drastic effect on sales. So he set up an A/B split test, presenting Virtual Sheet Music's website to half of its customers with the security seal and to the other half without. Conducted over the course of one month, the test revealed telling results: Visitors shown the seal generated 31 percent more sales than those who weren't.

"The only explanation I can find is that consumers feel more confident when they see that security seal on your site," Ferrari says. "Seeing the seal on the website gives them the needed trust to put their credit card details on ?the website."

Green Means Go
In addition to placing VeriSign's Secured Seal on its homepage and checkout page, Virtual Sheet Music now also employs VeriSign's EV SSL green address bar on its website. The technology for SSL encryption turns the address bar green if the SSL certificate is present when consumers begin purchases in newer, high-security browsers. Displayed on the checkout page, the technology serves as an additional trust indicator.

In another A/B split test, consumers who were able to see the EV green address bar generated 13 percent more sales than those consumers who weren't able to.

"The best analogy is a traffic light," says Ryan White, product marketing manager at VeriSign. "You pull up to a traffic light, it turns green and you go. It's the same on the internet. In the world of graphical user interfaces, green is good. When something is bad, it turns red; when something is good, it turns green."