Touch & Feel Beats Out Click & Hope Every Time.

With Electronic commerce and Web security such hot topics right now, Storage Inc. wanted to find out what some cutting-edge companies are doing to create trusted transactional environments for e-shoppers. While many technologies are competing in this space, we found one company that has created an innovative piece of software called ShopAssured. The company, WebAssured, combines the e-commerce experience with the Web's unique ability to interact with customers and have them "vote" on the reliability of e-commerce vendors. This gives new users a transaction history that is viewable before a transaction takes place, much like Ebay's ratings system. Senior Editor Josh Piven spoke recently to Travis Morgan, President and CFO of WebAssured (Carmel, IN), to get his take on the melding of e-commerce, transaction security, and the level of consumer trust on the Web.

JOSHUA: Are consumers generally confident with buying products over the Internet? If so, how come? Are they more confident shopping via catalogues? Less confident?

TRAVIS: They definitely are not confident. In fact, only about 10 to 20 percent of Internet users actually buy things online. Around 50 percent are now using the Internet to "shop" for goods and services, but only a minority are actually comfortable making the purchase online. They would prefer to go to a trusted brick and mortar store or catalogue.

JOSHUA: How has the net made consumers more aware of the level of trust involved in B2C transactions?

TRAVIS: When you have nothing to go by other than an image on a computer screen, it becomes shockingly obvious how little you really know about the transaction you are contemplating. You can't touch the merchandise, interact with a salesperson, see the facilities, etc. Absent are the many "consumer comfort factors" to which we have become accustomed in the physical world. As such, a consumer must be willing to take a leap of faith when ordering from a site for the first time. This is why fewer than 50 Web sites comprise over 75 percent of all B2C e-commerce. Consumers overwhelmingly only trust brands that they recognize--even though this may not be any indication of how reliable a Web site actually is.

JOSUA: WebAssured seems to use the 'net's natural interactivity to allow consumers to "vote" using complaint and praise buttons. Will we likely see more use of this "transaction history" technology going forward? How is it likely to change as Web technology develops?

TRAVIS: WebAssured puts the entire online community in the position of monitoring and enforcing the standards we expect of e-commerce. And like the Internet itself, these standards transcend geographic and political boundaries. Our model of Internet regulation is not through government intervention, but the application of what we call "pressure through publicity". We are moving toward achieving ubiquity of our "pressure through publicity" model with our new ShopAssured browser plug in. This puts the power of our collective business reliability intelligence directly into a user's Web browser, so a leap of faith is no longer required to make a purchase.

At the instant a web-site is loaded ShopAssured users know whether the site can be trusted to deliver as promised. And with the ShopAssured tool bar (which is free) users are never more than a click away from telling the whole world about problems--or successes--with a particular Web site. This is an incredibly powerful tool for consumers--and it effectively levels the playing field for online merchants! As the power of ShopAssured pervades the Internet, merchants will increasingly have no choice but to elevate their standards of performance because, if they don't, the whole world will know about it!

JOSHUA: Many consumers seem not to be aware of CAs and certificates when shopping on-line. Is there a better method of assuring that sites are trusted?

TRAVIS: This is precisely why we developed ShopAssured. The user doesn't need to understand a certificate or seal--they intuitively know when they look at a site how reliable it is likely to be, based on a combination of our experience resolving thousands of online disputes and other business background information provided through a powerful strategic alliance between WebAssured and the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation.

JOSHUA: How important is privacy to e-shoppers? Are consumers willing to give up some privacy in return for knowing more about the kinds of people that have used a merchant before?

TRAVIS: I personally believe that the privacy issue will likely decrease in significance over the coming years as consumers realize that they suffer no more infringement of privacy online than we have come to accept in the physical world. Off-line companies have been compiling data and selling lists based on our personal habits for 50 years! It's just more obvious online. Would you rather receive a phone call from a long-distance carrier in the middle of dinner, or an email which takes a millisecond to delete and forget? Personally, I'd be a lot more irritated at a magazine publisher who sells my address resulting in a dozen unwanted catalogues crammed in my mailbox than a Web site which figures out what kind of books I like and makes pertinent suggestions about others I should consider.

Technology on the Internet will actually make it a more private environment than the physical world, not less. As more Internet companies adopt the standard of "informed consent" advocated by WebAssured, consumers will actually be better able to control how their personal information is collected and used than they could in the physical world. And best of all, when companies do overstep the boundaries of ethical use of information, the Internet can quickly disseminate that fact to the whole community--a very strong dis-incentive for companies to go too far.

JOSHUA: Does microcash have a future in e-commerce, or will credit cards continue to rule?

TRAVIS: I suspect that we've only scratched the surface regarding the myriad of payment methods which will evolve from the Internet. Already alternative Web currencies like beenz have already begun to change the way we think about buying online, and there will be more ideas to come which are even further removed from the analog models of payment and value exchange. Eventually, we will see an entirely electronic global currency which will obsolete all current forms of paper and plastic money.

JOSHUA: Going forward, what technologies will be most important in assuring trust/security in B2B and B2C transactions? Encryption? Certificates? Purchase histories?

TRAVIS: ShopAssured! Seriously: there is no better way to protect online buyers and at the same time raise the standards for online sellers. This tool allows online buyers to see right though their computer screens and into the companies behind them. Bad guys can no longer hide behind their Web sites, and good guys no longer need suffer the negative impact a few unscrupulous sellers can have on the collective confidence in the Internet as a medium for conducting commerce.