Opodo - Opodo uses VeriSign to inspire consumer confidence and develop a reliable brand. from VeriSign, Inc.

You Are Here:

US Home > Resources > Success Stories > Hospitality > Opodo

Opodo

Opodo uses VeriSign to inspire consumer confidence and develop a reliable brand.

Entire story (PDF; 165 KB)

Overview

Opodo is the first truly Pan-European travel service created to address the real needs of today's traveller. Yet at the company’s inception, the Internet was still viewed in a somewhat sceptical way. So overcoming consumer fear of online purchasing as well as building a strong feeling of trust were integral to the mission of the Opodo brand.

Key Challenges

Opodo’s aggressive acquisition strategy across Europe has driven the growth of the business. And choosing the strongest level of encryption available, from the world’s leading SSL Certificate Authority was an important step towards reassuring the public that any information they entered into any of Opodo’s Web sites remained private and secure.

“Trust online is vital, and we really wanted to reassure our customers and demonstrate our commitment by securing their data. When we were in the process of assessing the way our customers visited our sites across Europe, we decided to run an experiment on the UK site. We posted the VeriSign Secured® Seal on the payment pages and found that completed sales rose by approximately 10% in comparison to the previous week’s results. We immediately realised the impact that the trust factor can have on shopping basket abandonment rates and we have since published the VeriSign Seal on all the payment pages across our network of European sites”

                                                             Warren Jonas
                                                             Head of Service Management
                                                             Opodo

Solution

Opodo chose Server Gated Cryptography (SGC) Certificates from VeriSign, which offer true 128-bit encryption to the highest possible number of Internet users (without an SGC-enabled certificate in place, Web site visitors using certain older browsers and many Windows 2000 users will only receive 40- or 56-bit encryption.) Opodo uses them on their Web sites throughout Europe to protect personal and payment data for all their insurance, air, car, and hotel deals.

Results

Over 18 million people visit Opodo sites every month, and VeriSign® SSL Certificates are installed across a host of Web servers to ensure that every single transaction is secure. Jonas comments “trust online is vital” and the figures clearly speak for themselves. Opodo doubled their growth last year, moving from €400,000 turnover in gross sales to €1bn by the end of 2005.

Read entire story (PDF; 165 KB)