How to set up so sales funnel goes to site with https

If you disrupt the user experience, you’ll see a dropoff in conversions. So the answer to your question is another question: Will you generate more than $101/year in sales from the original site (without redirecting)? Or asked another way, will you lose more than $101/year in sales if conversion rates are lower?

A SSL certificate from GoDaddy is about $89/year and a dedicated IP from a good hosting company is about $1/mo, bringing your total spend to $101. Only you can answer whether or not the $101/year is justified, but I’d be inclined to recommend that you buy the SSL and dedicated IP address.

Thanks for your reply – makes good sense.
We are still anticipating sales, so can’t answer the question with data.

What kind of disruption occurs with the redirect? It takes longer, I assume, or may look to the customer like something is wrong, perhaps?

A change in the URL may or may not go unnoticed, but different designs, navigation menus, layouts, logos, etc would be disruptions.

As an example – there are usually huge abandonment rates when sending people to a PayPal hosted checkout/payment page. It looks different, it’s not the design/style/font size/etc. they were used to and it breaks their mojo, causing confusion or introducing the opportunity for second guessing and buyer’s remorse before the purchase.

BUT, integrate with PayPal’s api, roll your own payment solution on your own site using your layout, fonts, etc so it is seamlessly integrated, and people will be more likely not to abandon.

It’s not that you’re more trusted or known than PayPal, it’s the interruption that snaps them briefly out of buying mode. That tiny “what just happened” moment introduces just enough doubt/hesitation/concern in people to cause more of them to abandon the purchase.

It’s UX and buyer psychology, and why I suggest that it comes down strictly to dollars and cents. If you’re going to sell $50/year of merchandise, it’s not worth the $101. UNLESS you know that you’re losing more than the $101 each year in sales.

Analytics will help you here. Do a good job of tracking what people are putting in their cart, how they’re navigating the site, and if/when they’re abandoning. If it’s happening during your transition to the other site for checkout (and happening enough to justify the $101/yr), you’ve got your answer.

Thanks again. Very helpful explanation.
I’ll use analytics to track what’s going on and that way can come to a useful, dollar-and-cents-based conclusion.
I will make site #2 as similar as possible to site #1, also.

I’ll check out the GoDaddy prices – sounds like a better deal than what I was quoted.