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Breach of Security
Jean Meserve announced in her Thanksgiving Day CNN
News broadcast that "not everyone is comfortable to give their credit card
information over the Internet".
A Detroit reporter who spent the official start of
the Christmas shopping season the day after Thanksgiving at one of the
largest suburban shopping malls stated after interviewing shoppers the
entire day that "no one I spoke with even considered purchasing over the
Web" for Christmas.
Granted, this is a little past what was supposedly
the biggest shopping worldwide, however, the point I'll be making is
timely.
Now, let's get our collective derrières off our cushy
home office chairs and give our heads a shake here. I haven't done the
math and I am much too lazy to do the research but if there are stats that
show the per capita 'virtual' spending of everyone with an email address,
or worse, the ratio of non-shopping surfers to netizens who have actually
purchased even a single product or service over the Internet, I'm
confident we would all hang our heads in utter shame. All of us
shopkeepers in the largest superstore in the world, the World Wide Web,
know there are millions of potential shoppers online every hour of every
day with millions more logging on for the first time every months. So,
what's the problem?
Simple. These newscasters hit the thumb with the
hammer. Consumers still don't trust the Internet as the new shopping
frontier. They would feel safer going to the one unboarded store in the
worst ghetto block to shop. Placing their personal and financial
information over phone lines is simply, not a safe thing to do. And we can
only blame ourselves for the way they feel.
If you feel that you haven't lost out on many times
more shoppers than you presently have then don't ask yourself the
following question: what are you doing to make your website visitors and
potential customers feel secure about buying from you?
Personally, I've done very little to explain to those
countless would-be customers of mine the safety of the secure server they
COULD have placed an order over. I prefer just to lose a lot of sleep
wondering about how I can improve my Internet sales. You know, prettier
websites, new promotion techniques. Borders on self-sabotage when you
honestly think about it.
I can't say that I even recall a single major
shopping site where an understandable and informative explanation of the
encryption process was put in plain view to potential purchasers. If there
are any, then I can assuredly tell you they'll keep their hits-to-sales
ratio very close to the vest.
Reality has it my friends, that if I could simply
convince those who were looking in the window of my virtual shop flailing
live credit cards this was a safe place to buy, perhaps I could afford
that huge digital big screen TV I've been eyeing.
At least then, I could listen and watch in splendor
to the next newscast and find out the next thing I should worry about.
© 1999 Rick Beneteau
Rick Beneteau is the highly acclaimed author of the new, top-selling
eBook, Branding YOU and Breaking the Bank.
Spend what he guarantees will be the most important few minutes you'll
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