Steve Woda's Blog

… Ecommerce, Internet Security, Economics, and Entrepreneurship

Category: eCommerce Page 5 of 7

The buySAFE Revolution?

By

On February 18, 2007

In buySAFE, Comparison Shopping, eCommerce, Trust and Safety, Web/Tech

Could 2007 be the year for The buySAFE Revolution?  I obviously hope so.

Brian Smith at Comparison Engines recently did a comprehensive post analyzing buySAFE’s prospects in 2007, and I thought you might enjoy the read.

"The buySAFE Revolution – 2007" by Comparison Engines

Brian writes a terrific blog, and if you are interested in eCommerce, you need to regularly check out his insights.

We obviously have a lot of work in front of us, but so far this year, buySAFE has added numerous distribution partnerships that enable tens of thousands of merchants to use buySAFE.  In addition, some of the largest merchants in eCommerce are now using buySAFE on their websites.  I hope I can report back to you this time next year with news that 2007 was, in fact, the year of The buySAFE Revolution!

Related blog posts:
"buySAFE News Update" by Jeff Grass, buySAFE Blog

buySAFE for MIVA Merchant 5

By

On February 16, 2007

In buySAFE, eCommerce, Internet Hosting, MIVA, Trust and Safety

Miva_logo_1 Yesterday, buySAFE and MIVA launched buySAFE’s trust and safety solution for all MIVA 5 Merchant customers.  This is exciting news for buySAFE, MIVA, MIVA’s hosting partners, and most importantly, MIVA’s merchants. 

If you are a MIVA merchant, you can begin using buySAFE on your website store with just a few minutes worth of effort.  Not only will you be able to drive up your store’s conversion rates by bonding your eCommerce sales with buySAFE, you can use buySAFE for FREE!  It won’t cost MIVA’s merchants one penny to use buySAFE on their website stores. 

In addition, if you upgrade your buySAFE account from a Trial account to a Full account (it is still free!), buySAFE will pay you a revenue bonus on each and every bonded transaction going forward.  Yes.  You heard me right.  Not only is buySAFE free for MIVA Merchant 5 customers, but buySAFE will pay merchants to use buySAFE. 

Finally, James Harrell, General Manager of MIVA Small Business, also announced additional incentives of up to $5,000 for installing and using buySAFE.  Obviously, we seriously believe that once merchants try buySAFE, they will love buySAFE!

This is exciting news for MIVA because it provides MIVA’s merchants with a proven tool for driving higher conversion rates and sales.  MIVA is dedicated to giving its merchants cutting edge services, and this is simply the latest initiative on their part to do that.

If you are a MIVA hosting partner (premier or standard), this is big news because the buySAFE for MIVA Merchant 5 product can provide a significant new revenue stream for hosting companies.  You should contact MIVA or buySAFE for additional details on how you can take advantage of this new revenue opportunity.

For buySAFE, this is exciting news because this morning thousands of MIVA merchants can roll out of bed and, with a few easy steps, activate buySAFE on their websites!  I think that is all I need to say.

Congratulations to the buySAFE and MIVA teams for a job well done.

Survey Reveals Shoppers Are Nervous

By

On February 14, 2007

In buySAFE, eCommerce, Marketing, Trust and Safety

I often hear people suggest that since eCommerce is growing so fast, shoppers are obviously perfectly confident and comfortable shopping online.  In my opinion, that is naive, and it ignores the facts. 

During the recent holiday shopping season, a new survey was published confirming that consumers are, in fact, nervous shopping online, and that these concerns are growing, not abating.  buySAFE commissioned an independent firm, InsightExpress, to survey 1,000 random, online shoppers for their views on trust, safety, security and eCommerce.  The eCommerce survey reveals that small and medium-sized retailers without well-known brand names are the big losers when it comes to nervous shoppers.  More than 1/3 of shoppers, 35%, feel "unsafe" when considering purchasing from unknown retailers.   

Read More

International Visitors Drive eBay Traffic

By

On February 2, 2007

In buySAFE, eBay, eCommerce, Google, Microsoft, Online Fraud, Trust and Safety

This AuctionBytes article by Lissa McGrath is a couple of months old, but I find it to be quite fascinating. 

During this past holiday shopping season, about 70% of eBay’s website traffic came from beyond the United States’ borders.  Wow!  Obviously, the international Internet is the real deal in 2007.  I haven’t spent any time independently analyzing this traffic data, but if true, it provides a fascinating view of how the eCommerce marketplace is evolving.

Read More

eBay and Seller Certification

By

On January 16, 2007

In buySAFE, eBay, eCommerce, Economics, Online Fraud, Portable Trust & Reputation Signals, Trust and Safety

Skip McGrath is the CEO of Auction Seller’s Resource – a terrific newsletter for professional eBay merchants and for those folks aspiring to make a living on eBay.

Skip recently posted a series of interesting articles on the subject of seller certification on eBay.

Part 1
Can Seller Certification Bring Buyers Back to eBay

Part 2
eBay Selling Tools To Build Your Business by Preventing Fraud

Skip has done a nice job of laying out a number of things to consider, and I encourage you to give his posts a read. 

I believe Seller Certification is part of the answer for eBay (and eCommerce in general), but my big fear is that a bunch of eBay marketing folks will get together and roll out a new "seller certification" program, and that the program will fail to actually do anything meaningful for buyers or the economic health of the eBay marketplace.  Tough, effective "seller certification" programs actually require that you have to tell some sellers that they CAN’T be "certified".  In my experience, marketing folks don’t like to tell current or prospective customers that they can’t do business together.  Tough, effective certification programs are designed to limit the players on the field, and this is usually counter to everything the marketing folks think about each and every day.

Read More

Google’s Universal Gadgets

By

On November 6, 2006

In buySAFE, eCommerce, Google, Web/Tech

Buysafeshoppinggooglegadget Last month, Google expanded their Gadget product so that you can now add Google Gadgets to any web page on the Internet.  The Google Universal Gadget is a big step beyond the previous incarnation that simply allowed you to add the Google Gadgets to your Google Homepage and Desktop.  I didn’t notice this improvement when it was first expanded, so I am bit late to the game.  However, I wanted to point it out to you because I love the product.

Interested developers can build Universal Gadgets by using Google’s API, and then users can take the Google Gadget and put it on any web page.

Here is an example using buySAFE’s Google Gadget.  All I had to do was go the buySAFE Shopping Google Gadget page, tailor the look and feel of the Gadget, and then cut and paste the following HTML code into my post.

<script src=”http://gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.
buysafeshopping.com/bss_module.xml&up_showSearch=1&
up_showCategories=1&up_showWatchList=1&up_searchTerm
=diamond&up_category=-1&up_lowprice=&up_highprice=&
up_sellerName=&up_sort=1&synd=open&w=320&h=450&
title=buySAFE+Shopping&border=%23ffffff%7C0px%2C1px
+solid+%23595959%7C0px%2C1px+solid+%23797979%7C0px
%2C2px+solid+%23898989&output=js”></script>

Voila! The buySAFE Shopping Gadget is up and running on my blog page.  Go ahead and do a quick buySAFE Shopping search via the Gadget below.  In my opinion, this is very cool.

It was very easy to create the buySAFE Shopping Google Gadget, and some developers are reporting that it can take less than 5 minutes to create simple Gadgets.  Check it out and have fun!

Related links:
“Google Universal Gadgets for your website released” by Jason S
“Add and Embed Google Universal Gadgets Modules to Websites and Blogs” by My Digital Life

PayPal to the rescue

By

On October 18, 2006

In eBay, eCommerce, Web/Tech

Q3 financial results were announced today, and eBay’s profits were up 10%.  That is good news for this battered stock, and it appears that lower taxes and PayPal were the major contributors.

Read More

buySAFE Announces New Partnership With Travelers

By

On October 16, 2006

In buySAFE, eBay, eCommerce, Liberty Mutual, Marketing, Overstock.com, Surety Bonds, The Hartford, TIAS, Travelers, Trust and Safety, Web/Tech

Today, buySAFE announced a new partnership with The St. Paul Travelers Companies, one of the largest financial institutions in the world with more than $113 billion in assets.

Travelers_logo_1

The new Travelers relationship adds another major U.S. financial institution to buySAFE’s growing team of business partners.  The Hartford Financial Services Group and The Rutherfoord Companies are major investors in buySAFE, and in 2005, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company joined with buySAFE to provide significant surety bond capacity for buySAFE’s rapidly growing business on eBay, Overstock.com, and TIAS.

Read More

eBay Feedback Farms Undermine Feedback Ratings System

By

On October 15, 2006

In buySAFE, eBay, eCommerce, Economics, Online Fraud, Portable Trust & Reputation Signals, Trust and Safety

Last week, Ina Steiner documented the basic story of ‘Feedback Farms’ on eBay.

I have to be honest, these scams continue to amaze me, and one has to conclude that these scams are damaging and undermining the entire feedback/merchant rating system.  If fraudsters can so easily create feedback/merchant ratings in the thousands, then buyers will have to increase their vigilance online.  From a buyer’s point of view, it continues to be more and more difficult to truly discern good from bad.

Read More

Add Your Phishing Emails to the Phishtank

By

On October 8, 2006

In eCommerce, Online Fraud, Trust and Safety

Phishtank is an interesting new anti-phishing service that recently launched to the public.  Brian Krebs of the Washington Post reviewed Phishtank, and I agree with many of his assessments.

The service is a great idea, and I like many facets of it.  I have always been a big fan of leveraging the collective knowledge of the community to identify and fight the bad guys.

My one issue with the service is the fact that they publish the URLs of the malicious sites on their home page.  People are pretty naive, and there are lots of people that will find this interesting and decide to visit these sites in their browser.  The problem is that these sites often attempt to exploit browser flaws, and surfers can fall victim to them by simply viewing the websites.  Obviously, publishing the URLs of the suspected malicious sites is not a great idea.

Still, I encourage you to check out the Phishtank (don’t visit the malicious sites though), and if you find a suspicious website, make sure you add it to the Phishtank.

Page 5 of 7

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén