November 20, 2003 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — VeriSign, Inc. (verisign.com), a network security and infrastructure services provider, said this week that the total transaction and sales volumes for its more than 97,000 online payment merchants increased to $6.9 million during the third quarter of 2003.
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The company said the increase, spread across nearly every merchant product category, is the result of more online merchants adopting its fraud protection services. According to VeriSign, its fraud protection services, launched in June, are used by approximately 40 percent of new VeriSign payment services customers.
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VeriSign also reported statistics gathered from its online payments network this week. According to the company, from January through October 2003, overall online commercial sales volumes through VeriSign’s payment network increased from $9.7 billion in 2002 to $19.8 billion. Merchant sales volumes for September and October combined increased from $2.56 billion during 2002 to $4.73 billion during the same two months of 2003.
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The statistics found that December and November are the busiest two months for online shopping with June, July and August being the least.
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VeriSign said the numbers showed that most online purchases were made between Monday and Friday during regular business hours.
