Emerchants Get Ready Holiday Spending to Increase

  It&#s late November and the holiday season is nearly here. Consumers are focusing on all of the gifts  they need to buy. Traditionally, Black  Friday, the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest retail-shopping day of the year and considered the official start to the holiday season.

Technologically savvy consumers who still want to get the best deals, but would rather not endure the chaos of Black Friday have made the term Cyber Monday popular to the e-retail world.

Cyber Monday is known as the first workday after Thanksgiving, when everyone returns to work and starts their holiday shopping online. According to Forrester Research, U.S. online holiday retail sales are expected to hit the $27 billion threshold this year. About one-fifth of those surveyed indicated that the Internet will be the place they shop the most this holiday season.

Online shopping provides consumers a great deal of convenience. No lines. No wait. No hassle. However, online shoppers have different concerns.

Identity theft and Internet fraud are common fears of some, and rightly so. Identity theft is the country&#s fastest-growing crime, and more than 9.9 million Americans were victims last year. Computer hackers are notorious for stealing social security numbers, credit card accounts and other private information. According to studies conducted by VISA, 61% of cardholders said, I would shop online more if I knew my credit card information was secure. Additional research reflected that 83% of cardholders who have not shopped online said that they worry about the security of their credit card and personal information.

E-merchants are constantly working to improve online transactions by making them safe and secure for their customers, ensuring them that their personal information is protected.

To assist online merchants with providing their consumers with safe and secure websites this holiday season, Xentinel Security (www.xentinelsecurity.com) offers HACKER FREE™ Certification. The certification enables e-merchants to reduce their liability to hackers, comply with the credit card industry&#s security standards, and most importantly, ensure customer confidence and trust.

According to Xentinel studies, e-merchants displaying the HACKER FREE™ seal increase visitor-to-buyer conversion rate an average of 14%, by addressing online shoppers&# security concerns. The seal provides consumers the necessary trust and confidence needed to purchase online.

In search of a competitive advantage for his web site for the 2005 holiday season, Steve Gonyou, Chief Information Officer at USA Hunting Supplies (www.usahuntingsupplies.com) subscribed to the Xentinel HACKER FREE™ Certification program. He was surprised by the value the certificate added to his site. We had been using Xentinel Security for just a few months and saw our sales increase by over 40%! We have more people adding items to their cart and more people checking out simply because of the level of security they feel knowing we are HACKER FREE.

How it works:

Websites are scanned each day with more than 10,000 vulnerability tests, including the FBI/Sans Top 20 Internet security test, and VISA, Master Card, American Express, and Discover Card security audit requirements. Additionally, web sites that bear the HACKER FREE™ seal are protected in real-time against hacker intrusions and the latest phishing schemes such as cross-site scripting.

The US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) agreed that web sites earning the HACKER FREE™ Certification will prevent 99.9% of hacker intrusions.

When consumers see the HACKER FREE ™ seal on an e-merchants&# web site, they can be assured that their personal information is secure.

E-merchants looking for a competitive advantage for the holiday season can sign up for the Xentinel 60 day HACKER FREE ™ Certification free trial at www.xentinelsecurity.com.