One of the best ways to increase visitor conversions, and potentially sales, is to offer a safe and secure environment for customers to enter in payment information for their purchases Online. If your customers feel safe buying from you there’s a better chance they will buy more and more often. eCommerce security has been an important factor among both shoppers and merchants for many years and possibly since Internet users first began entering in payment information over electronic networks.

Recent studies have shown that eCommerce security and encryption is still the most influential buying factor among Online shoppers.

As eCommerce has evolved, we have began to see many more payment options, beyond credit cards, offered by eTailers in an attempt to attract more users, increase the average purchase amount and convert more visitors. PayPal, Google Checkout, Debit or Credit Cards, eChecks, Billed Payments and Money Orders are just some of the different payment options offered by eTailers.

Most popular payment options used by shoppers:

• #1 Debit/Credit Cards
• #2 PayPal
• #3 Gift Cards/Certificates
• #4 eChecks/Bank Account
• #5 Billed Later
• #6 Google Checkout

The need for customers to feel comfortable buying from your storefront and providing their personal information is more important now than it has been in the past mostly due to the increase in Internet fraud concentrated at shoppers and eCommerce merchants. Internet fraud, stealing of personal information and merchants mishandling or loosing information are major reasons why shoppers have significant concerns about the security of their personal data.

Many merchants are not aware that they are required to protect and safeguard their customers private data and could even be held responsible for loss if the data is lost and/or misused. Companies like Overstock.com take extra precautions to keep their customers data safe within their network and database.

It’s great to offer alternative payment methods for convenience and to boost traffic or conversions. Offering more payment options means you will have to monitor your security measures in order to safeguard your customers information, store information and any other private data you wish to keep secure. Be sure to keep an active SSL certificate and post your trust badges in a prominent place on your pages. Small and new merchants should consider offering PayPal and Google Checkout as Payment options since shoppers are more likely to use a service like that to buy from stores they have never heard of. Google and PayPal also handle the security, so it’s easier for merchants to rest assured that their customer data will be safe.

Keeping your site secure and offering alternative payment methods can potentially attract more customers, increase the average order amount and helps to convert more visitors into buyers.

Update: Google has acquired Postini, a security company for electronic communications, for $625 million. This acquisition comes as no surprise to me as I have been saying Google is due to release more eCommerce related products or services and possibly even an eCommerce software of their own. If Google chooses not to develop their own eCommerce software, it certainly wouldn’t surprise me to see them acquire one of those companies.