Does anyone know anything about buySAFE?

[gwoodstrom]

This is my first question in this forum, so please excuse me if I'm covering old ground or if I'm in the wrong place. I've recently taken over a client's website that uses a Yahoo Merchant Account although the site itself is a customized build. I've set it up with HackerSafe and now we've received an email from buySAFE suggesting that we add their verification to our site. Does anyone know anything about them or is this just a scam? Thanks for any help.

[hostBrain]

Hi Gillian ,

I don't know if I would call it a scam, per se...
Seems to me just another company preying on the fears of others.
I probably wouldn't bother

[gwoodstrom]

Thanks for the feedback!

[buySAFELara]

Gillian,

I’d like to take just a brief minute of your time to tell you a little bit about what buySAFE does.

Unfortunately, not all Internet users feel comfortable making purchases on-line. In fact, of the 180 million internet users today, only half of them are willing to make a purchase on-line. The result of this unwillingness to purchase on-line is billions of dollars in lost sales annually. This loss disproportionately impacts merchants who lack a nationally recognized retail brand. It adversely affects a merchant’s cash flow, profitability and ultimately the rate at which they might otherwise grow their business.

Let’s assume for a minute that a less risk-averse shopper has found a product they want at a price they are willing to pay on your website. They will ask themselves two importantquestions:

Question 1: “If I buy from this website, will my personal information be safe?”
Question 2: “If I buy from this website, how do I know the merchant will perform as promised?” (i.e., will I get what I paid for in good condition; and will the merchant honor all the published website policies?)


While SSL certificates and services like HackerSafe help to address the first question, the second question reflects a more challenging trust issue even the most successful online retailers must address. Only buySAFE fully answers this “merchant performance” question for consumers.

buySAFE increases website conversion rates and average order size by replacing consumer doubts with confidence and guaranteed peace of mind. Assuming the merchant qualifies for buySAFE, the buySAFE Seal, which is displayed on the merchant’s website, provides them with the only explicit third-party endorsement of a merchant’s reliability and trustworthiness on the Internet. This endorsement is backed by a willingness to guarantee their performance with buySAFE’s own money. It’s this clear message of the confidence in the merchant’s trustworthiness that has such an enormous impact on risk-averse Internet users. Today, several thousand merchants use our service from very small businesses to retailers selling more than $120 million a year.

You may review the service buySAFE provides at buySAFE - strongest trust signal in e-commerce or you may contact us at 888.926.6333.

I hope this information was helpful.

King Regards,

Lara

[Shift4SMS]

Lara,

The info you posted seems very canned to me but one part intrigues me: "buySAFE increases website conversion rates and average order size..." Does buySAFE guarantee this in writing and refund all fees if these conditions are not met?

[bobchrist]

I think Hacker Safe/TRUSTe certification can also meet the security standard and will serve the purpose to prevail trust among visitors.

[jestep]

Trust seals can have multiple affects on a website's conversion rate. First they 'can' help visitors to trust the site, and therefore make them more likely to make a purchase. However, they also have a negative affect in that visitors see a hacker safe or buy safe or whatever seal and wonder why does this site have a seal like this, have they been hacked in the past, were they not safe at some point, etc. This is especially the case if your customers are less tech-savvy and less likely to recognize a trust seal as a good thing. In my personal experience, unless your site is doing several million plus in online sales a year, you wont see a worthwhile affect from any sort of seal, save Verisign. Once you have a lot of volume, a few tenths of a percentage better conversion can mean thousands of dollars, and trust seals can be helpful to achieve extra ground.

Take anything that these companies tell you with a grain of salt, because their opinion is obviously severely biased, and is it really easy to organize statistics to support your own cause.