Why do people put mastercard/visa logos on ecommerce sites?

Some sites put mastercard/visa logos: http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/9132/capture1272141594.jpg

Does it help with conversion? If so, by how much?

Big ecommerce sites such as amazon, ebay, etc don't have them...

 

It is an old school practice to show that yours is an actual shopping cart. I don't think they are needed any longer.

 

Same as why retail stores put those logos near check out points. Clues...

 

It is for confidence. You borrow the trust value of the Visa and Mastercard brands. I definately recommend doing it, along with American Express and any other cards you take. Also put some security logos from your payment provider

 

This. It builds value and confidence.

 

and customers with value and confidence brings... good conversions. Customers are used to see this on any website with a shopping cart. no seeing it might actually hurt the site and your sales

 

Well, sometimes it means they accept credit card, visa, master cards..

 

helpful lot! thanks guys!

 

Means they accept credit cards, and also its a trust factor.

 

don't forget the visual icon recognition

 

It is an old school practice to show that yours is an actual shopping cart. I don't think they are needed any longer.

 

It builds confidence and helps a lot.

 

It shows customer that you are accepting all cards. However they are aged now and I am not using it anymore with new designs.
Rather it will more impact if you place secure certificate logo, 100% guarantee image etc.

 

just shows what payments they accept
i dont think it gives customer any confidence IMO,
because its just a payment method.

 

because it makes your business look more safe...and informs the customer that your cards are accepted here

 

For a small site it makes a big difference in conversions to show your payment methods. This includes paypal or anything else. The buyer should always know the methods they have available for payment as soon as they show up.

For example with paypal, there's a huge number of people that refuse to use it because so many have lost money there or had bad experiences. Conversely there's many people that prefer to pay with it. Unlike Amazon or other very large sites like Amazon, or Best Buy, or others, user's don't always know if you support a particular method. Showing this prominently definitely helps sales. At the very least it should be shown on the shopping cart page, before any checkout, but I recommend putting them in the footer or sidebar of every page.

 

Keep in mind that you can still put credit card logos if you only accept paypal... as you can take all card payments through paypal