24 October 2000



Trading Standards Warns E-tailers 'Conquer Mistrust'

Businesses must conquer customer 'mistrust' of e-commerce if trading on the web is to thrive, warns a leading Trading Standards officer.

Richard Webb, the Trading Standards Institute's spokesman on e-commerce, was speaking to 45 business representatives and Trading Standards professionals from all over the country.

The Fair Trading on the Web seminar, held during National Consumer Week, follows in the wake of two surveys by Trading Standards professionals which revealed problems with more than a third of on-line purchases.

Mr Webb said: 'There is a problem with customer mistrust of commerce on the web, caused by late or non-delivery of goods or services and security when giving details of credit cards'.

During 1998, out of almost 300 million attempted transactions on the web only 80 million were completed. In addition, (according to a survey by U.S. shopping mall BizRate.com), last summer saw more than 75 percent of online buyers failing to complete at least one attempted purchase during a 90-day period.

The main reasons given for abandoning transactions, (leaving the shop and the shopping cart behind) were unforseen costs and problems with delivery.

Also, if a site was seen to be slow loading, customers lost confidence in the retailer believing that a slow web site predicted problems later on.