You Can’t Buy Trust!
It is an age old adage that “you can’t buy trust,” but, as I overheard Dr Phil saying yesterday when I was having my lunch and channel hopping, “old sayings are old because they still ring true!”
This saying perhaps comes into it’s own in today’s online world, where trust is something which is very difficult to come by. Think carefully about our online transactions (I’m not talking about financial transactions… yet!), every time we make a comment on a website, or fill out a contact form, or submit an item to Digg etc etc etc, we are asked to “confirm you are not a robot” or “check you are not spam.” Where’s the love? More importantly, where’s the trust?
It is hard to get round this trust issue in the online world, as so often there are people around who are trying everything to get ahead in online marketing, i.e by launching spam scripts that hammer a website’s comments sections or contact forms in the hope that someone will be stupid, or, rather, haphazard enough to publish their comment full of links to pharmaceutical paraphernalia.
But this lack of trust works both ways. I visit a website, and I have absolutely no idea who is behind it. I don’t know if any item I download from there will have annexed onto it a nasty little spyware surprise. I have no idea if, when making a purchase, or ordering a product, that ‘company’ won’t just charge my credit card, debit card or bank account to the absolute hilt. That they won’t has to be taken on trust.
Of course, we trust the big retailers, the large companies like Amazon and Ebay, but we don’t trust just anyone, even if they do have 1000 ‘testimonials’ - right?
Ebay is a case in point. We trust Ebay, and we trust Paypal not to rip us off and steal our hard-earned, but we don’t trust the other buyers and sellers (especially if their “positive feedback” score is low!). In fact, Ebay is a place where on CAN buy trust - accounts with ‘100% positive feedback’ can often be found for sale on Ebay itself!!
So what of the smaller, or medium-sized retailers who are trying to get into web-sales? Do we buy anything from them? Does our first purchase involve a ‘leap of faith’ whereby we take everything on face value and trust that the products will arrive with us safely, free from harm or damage, and in the condition as described? In many cases, yes, it probably does.
But it doesn’t have to anymore.
The answer? Shop Smart @ 24HourTrading - a new initiative we have set up to give the power of trust back to consumers. A place where many thousands of products, services and online retailers shall be listed, with pricing and payment details readily available. Importantly, it is a place where buyers can provide their real feedback, and their experiences with each retailer and product in question - whether positive or negative. Shop Smart @ 24HourTrading will only list retailers we trust: removing those who receive negative feedback, and supporting those who provide a positive experience for buyers.
Anyone serious about online retail should get their site, products, services or online store evaluated and into the site.
Anyone wishing to find products or services from online retailers they can trust should Shop Smart.
Leave a Reply