VeriSign Announces Valentine’s Day-Related Online Shopping Activity

VeriSign Reports $3.9 Billion in Online Valentine’s Day Period Purchases; Spike in Big-Ticket-Item Purchases Demonstrates Increased Consumer Confidence in Online Shopping

February 16, 2005; 11:50 PM

(DomainInformer.com) - MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA. - February 16, 2005 - VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), the leading provider of intelligent infrastructure services for the Internet and telecommunications networks, today released new e-commerce data showing that purchases for Valentine's Day period accounted for $3.9 billion in online sales. VeriSign analyzed online shopping data from February 1 through February 14, 2005, with research indicating a 30 percent increase in online spending as compared with the same time period in 2004. This strong growth in online sales was led by a 130 percent increase in the diamonds category, reflecting an upswing in consumer confidence in purchasing big-ticket items online.

"The growth in online sales for jewelry is a key indicator of increased consumer confidence in spending more money online," said Trevor Healy, vice president, payment services, VeriSign. "With diamonds showing the highest increase in online revenue during the Valentine's Day shopping season, we not only see that consumers are comfortable making big-ticket purchases online, but also buying sentimental and significant items through secured e-commerce sites. This proves that online shopping has progressed past basic items, such as books and CDs, thus opening new sales opportunities for merchants from all categories."

"In the ‘brick-and-mortar' world, jewelry has always been a high performing category around Valentine's Day," said Adam Graham, spokesperson for Diamonds.com. "Translating that success to the virtual world proved difficult given consumer hesitation to purchase expensive and, in many cases, symbolic pieces of jewelry through e-commerce sites. Through posting the VeriSign® Secured™ Seal, Diamonds.com is able to provide our customers with the assurance they need to transact business online with the confidence that their personal account information is protected."

The latest statistics from VeriSign are based on the analysis of online sales volume processed through VeriSign Payment Services, which processes more than 37 percent of all North American e-commerce and represents in excess of 127,000 online retailers.

Full-Category Comparisons
VeriSign tracks year-over-year merchant activity in key e-commerce categories. Significant findings for the Valentine's Day period include the following figures from Tuesday, February, 1 2005 through Monday, February 14, 2005, as compared to the equivalent time period in 2004 (Sunday, February 1 through Saturday, February 14):

Online spending in the candy category increased 25 percent in 2005 as compared to the same time period in 2004. Spending in the chocolate sub-category accounted for 49 percent of the overall category spending.
Online spending in the flower category increased 16 percent in 2005 as compared to the same time period in 2004. The number of online transactions on Valentine's Day jumped 349 percent as compared to 2004.
Online spending in the greeting card category increased 50 percent in 2005 as compared to the same time period in 2004.
Online spending in the jewelry category increased 34 percent in 2005 as compared to the same time period in 2004. Diamonds led all subcategories with a 130 percent increase in overall consumer spending year over year. The diamonds category also held the highest single-item ticket price of $427.
Spending Patterns
Tuesday, February 1, 2005—the first day of the period - was the peak online shopping day, accounting for 5.3 million transactions, representing more than 10 percent of the activity recorded from February 1 through February 14. This varies slightly from the trend of Monday being the busiest online shopping day during the December 2004 holiday season.

The total amount spent from Tuesday, February, 1 2005 through Monday, February 14, 2005 was $3.9 billion, a $0.9 billion — or 30 percent — increase in sales as compared to the same time period in 2004 (Sunday, February 1 through Saturday, February 14).
The average sale amount during the time-period from Tuesday, February 1, 2005 through Monday, February 14, 2005 was $144, a two percent increase as compared to the same time period in 2004 (Sunday, February 1 through Saturday, February 14). The average per order ticket price reached a high of $158 on Wednesday, February 9.
VeriSign has a unique ability to correlate intelligence gathered across the Internet, which enables the company to identify worldwide market trends such as changes in Internet shopping patterns that may impact vendors with an online presence. As such, in addition to reporting on online shopping activity related to Valentine's Day, VeriSign also issued data throughout December 2004 regarding e-commerce statistics for the holiday shopping season. More information can be found at http://www.verisignsecured.com.

About VeriSign
VeriSign, Inc. (Nasdaq: VRSN), operates intelligent infrastructure services that enable individuals and businesses to find, connect, secure, and transact across today's complex global networks. Additional news and information about the company is available at www.verisign.com.

For more information, contact: VeriSign Media Relations: Brendan Lewis, [email protected], 650.426.4470 VeriSign Investor Relations: Tom McCallum, [email protected], 650-426-3744