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Putting a face to your business can reassure wary online buyers

Putting a face to your business can reassure wary online buyers

Putting a face to an online business can help ease shoppers’ wariness about scams and fraud, according to a new paper.

Research set to be published in the September issue of the Journal of Retailing presents hypothetical online shopping situations to undergraduate business students, who were then questioned about their attitudes.

In one of the studies, participants were presented with several forms of a website of a fictitious jewellery vendor and asked to buy diamond earrings.

One group of students was shown a site that featured a photo of the owner: a stock photo of a middle-aged man in a business suit working at a computer.

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Others were shown sites with an image of a nondescript office building and another group went to mock shopping sites with no photos of the owner or location at all and were told the retailer was entirely virtual.

Participants were also told the vendor was either local or about 2,400 kilometres away.

The researchers found that the business students preferred to buy the earrings from the sites that showed the owner or a building.

“The implication is that any such suggestion of physical or social reality associated with the online retailer boosted new customers’ confidence in that business,” said the press release.

“Purely virtual vendors, who lack a physical presence, or those with a geographically distant retail location, are at the greatest disadvantage in selling their wares online, partly from the psychological distance felt by customers.”

The authors suggest that putting a face on the business may be helping to ease many online shoppers' fears about fraud and scams.

A 2014 study by Microsoft, which polled 1,006 Americans between the ages of 18 to 74, found that 60 per cent of respondents were concerned about being swindled when shopping online.

And these fears may be merited.

A 2013 study by Pew also found that 11 per cent of internet users have had personal information stolen, such as their social security number, credit card or bank account information, and a further 6 per cent have fallen victim to such scams and lost money.

In order to connect customers to their businesses and allay these fears, the authors suggest that online retailers need to make an effort to show shoppers that their stores do physically exist through imagery, and to familiarize them with the owner.

“These strategies … are cost-effective ways small retailers can use to circumvent the constraints of distance and anonymity, and encourage consumers to purchase online,” said the press release.