BuySAFE launches beta of e-commerce rating tool

Worried about identity theft and fraudulent e-commerce sites?

BuySAFE may have something for you. The company launched a free desktop application on Tuesday called buySAFE Shopping Advisor that offers ratings on U.S.-based e-commerce sites.

The sites are rated based on whether they are using valid SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption for data transmission, whether the sites are regularly inspected for security vulnerabilities, have a published privacy policy, and whether the merchant is bonded.

The integrated browser tool also offers a portal to 3,000 shopping sites where purchases are guaranteed with a bond of up to $25,000 and are protected with identity theft insurance for 30 days.

Arlington, Va.-based buySAFE partners with underwriters Liberty Mutual, Travelers, and ACE on these services.

[Pete Bardo]

Interesting idea, but their search partners do not include Google, Yahoo! or MSN. Still, they claim merchant participation increases sales by an average 6.8%. How is that going to happen? Using stats from our web site, traffic from the top ten search engines accounts for 99.9% of traffic from search engines--and not one of their search partners is on that list?

Looks to me like a tactic to scare merchants into giving up 1% of their sales revenue in exchange for a warm-fuzzy.

[dennisb10]

It is interesting. Looks like the tool works without partnering with the search guys, so not sure that's relevant. Also looks like they have a free solution, but I'm sure that's just a carrot to get them to pay 1% in the future.
Either way, cool tool for users.

[buySAFE_Jeff]

Hi Pete and Dennis, my name is Jeff Grass and I'm buySAFE's CEO. I very much appreciate your comments on the beta launch of Shopping Advisor and I'd like to personally answer the very good questions you've asked here

Our goal with Shopping Advisor is to create a true win-win-win for shoppers, merchants and buySAFE. Shopping Advisor is designed to make internet shopping safer and more secure for consumers in two ways - 1) by arming them with the information they need to make smart and safe shopping decisions (Shopping Advisor assigns a Safe Shopping Rating to 300,000+ eCommerce websites in the U.S. based on an objective assessment of their use of the normal best practices that ensure a safe and secure shopping and experience) and 2) by providing access to an alternative risk-free shopping channel where every purchase via the Safe Shopping Portal is automatically guaranteed with a bond up to $25,000 per purchase and the buyer receives 30 days of free ID Theft protection (covers ID theft issues regardless of cause). All of this is FREE for the shoppers who use Shopping Advisor. Period.

For merchants, our normal bonding service is a free service (they pay 1% only on some marketplaces like eBay where we are not able to offer our Buyers Choice pricing model) that builds trust with shoppers, helping convert more visitors to buyers. We've tested buySAFE on literally hundreds of merchant sites and across millions of transactions and have found we have a materially positive impact on website conversion - 6.8% on average as you pointed out. Our free bonding solution, however, gives buyers an option - if they so choose - to purchase a Bond Guarantee at checkout, typically for about 3% of the purchase price to fully guarantee all the terms of sale + ID theft protection. Our testing shows that just giving the shopper the option to buy the bond makes them more likely to buy (whether they choose to buy the bond or not).

With Shopping Advisor, our goal is to no longer ask the buyer to pay the 3% fee but rather include the Bond for free. Instead, merchants agree to pay buySAFE a referral fee, but ONLY if a shopper actually makes a purchase. Our merchants tell us they really like this concept because we send them buyers that are trust motivated (vs. just cheapest price) and they pay us a % of the sale price, but only if we actually generate a sale. This cost-per-sale pricing model makes it essentially a risk-free advertising solution for the merchant.

buySAFE wins because we're succeeding on fullfilling our vision of making internet shopping safer for buyers and more profitable for merchants and hopefully building successful business in the process so that we can rollout additional tools like this to make internet shopping safe.

I'd highly encourage you to download Shopping Advisor and give it a try by going to www.buysafe.com It's our first day of the public beta launch so I'm sure there are lots of areas for improvement. Please send us all the suggestions you have and we'll work hard to incorporate as many as we can. Many thanks. Jeff

[ewichome6]

All of this sounds great but you have a big problem. To start with, me. I own a site with my name attached to the SSL certificate. When I went in and downloaded your buySafe toolbar and keyed in my site, I found 500 products from 83 stores with my name attached to the stores. I don't even sell these products. These are all hackers carrying the buysafe seal. Not much confidence in your credibility on my end. I thought about using your name on my site but when I found out that you were not as secure as you said you are, you definitely do not have my business. I am still working on these leeches and hopefully I can put you in the spotlight.

[ewichome6]

Oh, and one more thing. I own 1 store, not 83 stores.

[stack_b]

ewichome6 - I just spent the last 45 minutes trying to figure out what in the world you were talking about since I have been using the BuySafe toolbar for two days now, and so far, I absolutely love this thing! It is about time somebody created a tool to make online shopping safer.

It took me a while, but I just realized that you probably don't know how to use an internet browser or a product search engines. I couldn't figure how you were using the toolbar to find your business name and how you could possibly come up with 83 stores with your business name attached. Your "results" don't reflect the purpose of the toolbar as far as I can tell. After a bunch of tinkering, I finally figured out how you came up with such ridiculous results and a weird conclusion. The purpose of the toolbar seems to be to rate merchants in search results on Google and to provide a "safe" comparison shopping engine. I think the Google search results are the only place where BuySafe mention anything about SSL certificates (this is the safe shopping rating according to their site). In that instance, BuySafe obviously has nothing to do with what shows up in Google's search results. Therefore, I am assuming that this is not what you are referring to in your angry post.

Then I figured out that what you were talking about actually reflects a poor understanding of product search engines (Shopping.com and Shopzilla are two big examples). I am betting $100 that you entered your business name into BuySafe product search engine (the safe shopping portal). Like every product search engine, their product search engine replies with the closest PRODUCT results it can think of (NOT merchants it can think of). If you entered the name of your business, BuySafe's search engine looked for products with the same name as your business. Obviously, their search engine is going to come back with something, and in your case, it seems to have come back with 500 products sold by 83 different online stores (I have no clue what your business name is, but clearly, their are at least a few products out their with similar names to your business name). Of course, that is what the product search engine is supposed to do. Their product search engine is making a guess as to what you want based on the term you entered into the search box.

Your problem is that you were using a product search engine to search for your business name! The other problem is that, based on what BuySafe says on their site, your business' products aren't going to be included in the search results because you aren't "bonded" (you said weren't going to give your business to BuySafe, so obviously, you aren't currently using BuySafe and your products aren't going to show up in their product search engine).

To summarize... Your comments seem to reflect an naivete about properly using the internet. The BuySafe search engine is a product search engine, not a merchant search engine! If you use it for that purpose, it might be more useful for you. :)

[stack_b]

This browser toolbar is awesome! It is about time someone came up with something to help protect people shopping online. Very, very cool!