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Online Shopping Protections!
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This article addresses advantages and disadvantages of consumers and merchants while shopping
online and defines four critical areas that consumers and merchants can employ to make
sure that everyone has an enjoyable experience.
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Shopping and buying online means that there are new ways of reducing costs to the retailer and
to the consumer. For most people, gone are the days of hopping in the car and driving for miles,
browsing the aisles of a retail store, hoping to find what you need. On the other hand, some
consumers prefer interacting with people rather than computers because they find computers
hard to use.
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Searching an online store can be faster. The internet is providing a more affective way of getting
products to the people and reaching different buying audiences. However, a few problems that
shoppers and merchants potentially face include identity theft, faulty products, fraudulent
payment information, and the accumulation of spy ware.
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Advantages for the consumer and merchant are:
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* Shoppers enjoy a world of choice of products, pricing selections, and in some cases
much lower prices than retail stores in that online shopping dictates rivalry among competitors.
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* Convenience - online stores are usually available 24 hours a day, and many consumers
have internet access both at work and at home. A visit to a retail store requires travel
and must take place during a retail store business hours. Searching or browsing an online
catalog can be faster than browsing the aisles of a physical store.
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* Another advantage of shopping online is being able to quickly find deals for items or
services with many different vendors. Although it might take some time, search engines and
online price comparisons can be used to look up sellers of a particular product or service.
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* Doing away with certain constraints such as the size of a "brick-and-mortar" store, lower
stocking costs, and lower staffing overhead.
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Concerns for the consumer and merchant are:
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* Privacy of personal information is a significant issue and very important,
and to some consumers an emotional involvement. Many consumers want to avoid telemarketing
and spam which could lead to loss of identity from supplying contact information to an
online merchant. In response, many merchants promise not to use consumer information for
these purposes, or provide a mechanism to opt-out of such contacts.
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* In the event of a problem with an item consumers are concerned with the ease with which
they can return an item for the correct one or for a refund. Consumers may need to contact
the retailer, visit the post office and pay return shipping, and then wait for a replacement
or refund.
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* Phishing is another danger, where consumers are fooled into thinking they are dealing
with a reputable retailer, when they have actually been manipulated into feeding private
information to a malicious party.
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* Given the lack of ability to inspect merchandise before a purchase, consumers are at
higher risk of fraud on the part of the merchant.
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* Merchants risk fraudulent purchases using stolen credit cards or fraudulent repudiation
of the online purchase.
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Consumer/Merchant – Protect Thyself!
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Although the benefits of online shopping are considerable, when the process goes poorly it can
create a nightmare situation. To help address some of the consumer and merchants concerns,
the
i-Shopping-Mall.com is a web site that makes online shopping much easier
by providing access to over 400 merchant web stores, and, much safer by taking the time to
verify that shoppers are safe if purchasing from the site.
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As with most web sites, shoppers can save money by searching for great deals, find coupons,
free shipping deals, or shopping the special promotions and featured merchant pages. However,
i-Shopping-Mall.com goes one step further than most to offer consumers
a checks and balances philosophy by grading merchant web stores in four critical consumer
protection categories:
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1 - Is there Secure Socket Layer(SSL) Protection when entering Credit Card information?
2 - Are they enrolled in Industry Oversight Programs: Trust Mark or Trust Seal?
3 - Have they posted Acceptable Privacy Policy regarding use of your information?
4 - Have they posted Comprehensive Contact Information if a shopper has problems?
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There is an assumption by most consumers that web shopping sites have put in place the necessary
consumer protection measures when they go online shopping. This has become a consumer expectation.
The consumer is actually not thinking about protections when they sit down at a computer to shop.
However, there may be a price to pay if they are not careful in that not all merchant web stores,
innocent or not, take the necessary steps to insure consumer protection.
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Merchants
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To address the critical consumer protection categories, merchants should employ:
Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption that has generally solved the problem of credit card
numbers being intercepted in transit between the consumer and the merchant.
Deploy countermeasures such as firewalls and anti-virus software to protect networks. Identify
theft is still a major concern for consumers when hackers break into a merchant's web site and
steal names, addresses and credit card numbers. Computer security has become a major concern
for merchants and e-commerce service providers.
Quality seals can be placed on the shop web page if it has undergone an independent assessment
and meets all requirements of the company issuing the seal. The purpose of these seals is to
increase the confidence of the online shoppers.
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Consumers
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There are four areas of protection that consumers can look for to protect themselves when using
online retailer services. These include:
Ensure that the merchant site is protected with SSL when entering credit card information. If so,
the URL on the credit card information entry screen will start with "HTTPS".
Ensure that there is comprehensive contact information on the website before using the service,
so that if there are problems with the product or the product never arrives, the consumer can reach
someone to rectify the issue.
Notice if the retailer has enrolled in industry oversight programs such as trust mark or trust seal.
Ensure that the retailer has an acceptable privacy policy posted to protect the information entered
by the shopper.
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