buySAFE and
ScanAlert, the provider of HACKER SAFE, issued a very important joint press
release yesterday announcing a new strategic partnership between our two
companies. As the release states, “the
buySAFE/HACKER SAFE combination enables online merchants to address the two
most prominent concerns among online shoppers -- merchant non-performance and
data security assurance.” This is really
quite a groundbreaking event because by combining the two offerings, for the
first time ever, truly comprehensive, virtually risk-free online shopping for
internet users is enabled. The combined
offering addresses all of the main trust threats online buyers are faced with
and worried about. Please let me explain why…
There are
two main types of concerns that online users have when buying online – concerns
over the security & privacy of their information and concerns over merchant
trust & performance. As shown in the
following the chart, HACKER SAFE addresses roughly half of the concerns the typical
shopper has and buySAFE addresses the other half. The last area of concern which both solutions indirectly
provide a consumer protections for is privacy (via ensuring a secure site and a
trusted merchant). That said, TRUSTe is
really the industry leader with regard to ensuring full privacy protection
(TRUSTe is therefore also shown to reflect this). By bundling the HACKER SAFE and buySAFE
offerings together so that every HACKER SAFE customer that qualifies for
buySAFE can use buySAFE for free and so that every buySAFE merchant can now get
deep discounts to use HACKER SAFE, it provides an exceptionally compelling
offering for both merchants and shoppers.
There are very strong economic incentives for internet shopping to be completely trusted, reliable and risk-free (anything less than risk-free eCommerce is a major friction point that slows growth, reduces participation and triggers discounting that leads to markets for lemons) so it’s clearly the future of eCommerce. This announcement is major step forward toward realizing this vision of completely safe online shopping.
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