I’ve recently read reports in the technology press saying that a percentage of Irish e-commerce sites don’t take customer security seriously. See one of the reports here. I have no reason to doubt the statistics but this type of report fills me with dread, as it gives the impression that it is unsafe to do online shopping with any Irish e-commerce websites.
Firstly let me say this at the top of my e-voice to everyone who’s listening. “We do take security extremely seriously”. Why wouldn’t we? Our whole business (and livelihood!) is dependent on convincing our potential customers to trust us and enter their personal and credit card details on our website. So, here is a list of the reasons why you can be sure that shopping with us at puddleducks.ie is safe:
- All communication of your personal and credit card data is encrypted. Check the “https://” and the padlock on our checkout pages.
- We have an up-to-date security cert from Thawte. Check that it is current by clicking on the cert. It will show it is current and it will display today’s date.
- For credit card processing we use Realex – the leading payment service provider, also used by companies such as Aer Lingus and Vodafone.
- We do not store your credit card details on our server. In fact, we never ever see them.
- We show our actual real address and land-line phone number on our homepage. Go on – phone us – we are real people!
- We publish a security policy on the site showing the measures we take to protect your personal data.
It is important to educate internet users on how they know whether a certain online shopping site is safe or not. Occasionally, we hear scare stories in the media regarding internet security. In some of these reports, instead of teaching people about the few steps to know when a site is safe or not, commentators often say “To be really sure only shop at large well known websites such as Amazon or Ebay”. This type of advice can have a huge impact our business and is very simplistic.
Instead, the advice should be “Learn the difference between a safe and unsafe site and then go shop at the safe and secure Irish-owned small businesses (like us!) that are introducing more competition and extra choice to the Irish online shopper. Learn that sites taking the type of security measures listed above can be trusted and you can safely shop with them.” Please!
— Aedan
PuddleDucks Blog 
