Steve Woda's blog

Thank you buySAFE!

Today, I am starting a new chapter in my entrepreneurial story. It is with both a bit of sadness and a lot of excitement that I share with you the news that I have left buySAFE to pursue other start-up and entrepreneurial interests. In addition, I have joined buySAFE’s Board of Advisors so that I can continue to assist the company in whatever fashion is necessary.  Click here to see buySAFE's announcement on the buySAFE blog.

After almost nine years of building buySAFE, I am leaving the Company in very capable hands, with fresh funding, and the brightest future that the Company has ever had. It has been a deeply satisfying experience to create something valuable, and I want to sincerely thank our customers, our partners, my colleagues and the many investors who made buySAFE possible. I am obviously looking forward to my next adventure, but I am also very much looking forward to buySAFE’s continued success over the coming months and years.

I founded buySAFE after getting burned in an online transaction on eBay. As a student, I didn’t have any extra money to lose to ecommerce fraudsters, and so I decided that there had to be a better way to buy and sell products online. buySAFE was born!

This adventure started for me while I was earning my MBA at Wharton in 2000, and as with all start-ups, there have been huge successes and great challenges. For me, both have proven to be invaluable learning experiences.

Developing buySAFE’s early business/technology plan, acquiring our major financial institution and strategic partners (including two major strategic partners to be announced in the coming months), and raising our $30 million in venture capital financing were all challenges that I ultimately found to be great learning experiences. Over time, I was able to lead almost every aspect of buySAFE’s business operations, and all of these experiences were amazing for me personally and professionally. I plan to share with you many of the lessons I learned at buySAFE over the coming months.

Perhaps the thing I am most proud of at buySAFE is our team. Early on, I recruited Jeff Grass, Tim Woda, and Hans Dreyer to buySAFE. Today, Jeff is buySAFE’s CEO, Tim is the VP - Sales, and Hans is the VP - Operations. They are the core of our team even to this day. The rest of our team is amazing as well, and it has been a pleasure working with each and every one of them.

I never intended to spend almost a decade working on my Wharton class project, but along the way, buySAFE provided me with an amazing opportunity to make great friends, to learn important new skills, and to see that anything is possible with persistence and creativity. It also taught me that you can’t build a company by yourself.

Although I could never hope to name all of the folks that deserve my thanks, I wish I could. A few folks in particular - my wife, my brother, and buySAFE’s employees, customers, investors, and advisors - have all obviously been invaluable to both me and buySAFE. To all of you, thank you! I sincerely appreciate your investments in time, capital, expertise, and support. There would be no buySAFE without you.

As far as the next chapter in my entrepreneurial story, I am not ready to share the details quite yet, but please stay tuned. I will share my adventures with you here on my blog, so if you are interested, please make sure to subscribe using the form below.

Thank you buySAFE!

Related posts:

"Steve Woda, Founder and Chairman of buySAFE, Pursues New Entrepreneurial Ventures" on the buySAFE blog

"Founder of buySAFE, Steve Woda, Steps Down" on AuctionBytes.com

Shopping Advisor approved by Mozilla for Firefox

After two months of testing in Mozilla's developmental sandbox, Mozilla approved the buySAFE Shopping Advisor for public distribution via the Firefox Add-on site starting this week.

If you aren't already using Shopping Advisor with your Firefox browser, you should install it as an add-on today.  You can check it out on the official Mozilla Firefox Add-on site here... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9009

I am obviously excited about this big milestone, and as always, I hope you will continue to provide us with your feedback, insights and ideas on Shopping Advisor over the coming weeks and months.

Have fun, and happy new year!

Steve

Obama is More Famous, But Paris Has a Better Energy Policy

Okay.  I couldn't resist digressing a bit today.

Paris might not be as famous as Obama, but she seems to have a better energy policy than he does.  She makes fun of the "white haired dude" as well.  This spoof is a classic. 

Nicely done Paris.  You're "so hot!"  :)

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

Also, while I have you here, please check out buySAFE's new safe shopping tool, Shopping Advisor.  This revolutionary application is something that my team has been working on for more than a year, and the industry reviews have been tremendous thus far.  Of course, I would love to get your comments and feedback as well.

Here is the scoop... The buySAFE Shopping Advisor is a free browser plug-in that enables consumers to shop online safely and securely. The Shopping Advisor provides objective ratings on eCommerce websites (almost 400,000 as of this morning) so consumers have the information they need to make safe and informed online shopping decisions.  More importantly, Shopping Advisor provides exclusive access to a unique safe shopping channel where every purchase is guaranteed with a bond up to $25,000 and identity theft protected – at no cost.

Have fun, and buy safe!

A Little Challenge to the Private Sector

Today's post is provided by Joan Herbig.  Joan is the Chief Executive Officer for ControlScan, a leading provider of security and Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance solutions designed exclusively for small- to medium-sized e-commerce businesses.

******************************************

I recently sent some employees to a seminar to get an industry-recommended security certificate. The seminar is aimed at providing education on the newest and hottest cyber threats.

With all the news of mega breaches out there, including one I just wrote about on www.esecuritydiva.com, it would seem as if an information-packed seminar such as this one would be packed with IT people, right? Actually, it was. But with public sector IT people. Private sector attendees were few and far between.

What’s going on here? This little piece of news could be a telltale:

What is the Most Cost Effective Marketing Channel for eCommerce Merchants? Email Marketing!

According to eMarketer, email marketing is still a very effective means of driving e-commerce.  The following is an excerpt from eMarketer's article, "E-Mail Marketing Still Works"...

First, the good news: permission-based e-mail is great at getting consumers to buy.

Half of US adult e-mail users surveyed in April 2008 for Merkle's "View from the Inbox" study, conducted with Harris Interactive, said they had made an online purchase in the previous year as a result of permission-based marketing.

In addition, e-mail was second only to customer reviews on Web sites for influencing online purchases, according to DoubleClick Performics' "Green Marketing Study," conducted by Opinion Research Corporation in February 2008. E-mail was roughly equal to search results in terms of influencing online purchases.

SPAM emails are obviously a huge problem, but when consumers expect to receive an email from a merchant, they obviously open those emails and respond in a material manner.  Our experience suggests that email marketing is here to stay and in fact, is going to grow in importance for online merchants because there are few, if any, more cost effective ways to drive a sale than to market to your current and past customers via email.  Having said that, consumers are increasingly likely to stop doing business with a retailer if the retailer uses poor email practices.  Therefore, there is a huge opportunity here for merchants, but if done incorrectly, it can be costly. 

Make sure you understand email best practices.  EmailLabs has produced nice list of email best practices that might be helpful for you.

Once you have acquired your customers via more expensive channels like Paid Search Advertising, eBay, or CSEs, make sure you keep them buying from you on a consistent basis by offering them interesting offers via email.  This really is a no brainer.

Read more of the eMarketer article here >> E-Mail Marketing Still Works - eMarketer

Technorati Tags: Email Marketing,eMarketer

Daily Roundup for 2008-04-16

• Does Your Company Need a Chief Blogger? - Advertising Age
  It's a question marketers are still grappling with years after the first waves of corporate blogging flooded the web. But for better or worse, it seems corporate blogging -- and the title of chief blogger -- is beginning to hit its stride. Companies such as Coca-Cola, Marriott and Kodak all have recently recruited chief bloggers, with or without the actual title, to tell their stories and engage consumers.


• Brands Partner With Consumers Online - eMarketer
  These days, online consumers and companies are collaborating on a range of activities, including R&D, marketing and after-sales support.  Here are a few examples of how brands and consumers are working together online.

Daily Roundup for 2008-04-14

• Is Yahoo Right to Resist Microsoft?
  Yahoo's resistance to a takeover by Microsoft looks foolhardy to some investors and Wall Street analysts. But the push-back may prove effective in the end—at least by forcing the suitor to cough up a few more bucks a share.  Executives from Yahoo (YHOO) on Apr. 7 reiterated the reasons for their opposition. The $31-a-share offer, made public Feb. 1, "substantially undervalues" Yahoo, and its stock component is even less attractive in light of Microsoft's (MSFT) slumping share price. "We have continued to launch new products and to take actions which leverage our scale, technology, people, and platforms as we execute on the strategy we publicly articulated," Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock wrote.


• Yahoo Gets a Deadline
  Microsoft (MSFT) just dropped the bomb on Yahoo (YHOO). Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on Apr. 5 sent a letter giving Yahoo's board three weeks before it initiates a proxy fight, including nomination of a new slate of directors likely to approve the deal.

Daily Roundup for 2008-04-08

• Just What We Needed, Google on Speed - Google Everflux
  Is it just me or has Google gone into overdrive? As a professional full-time online marketer I have to keep my mind firmly placed on what Google is doing. As much as I try not to because Google has probably driven more people around the bend than Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz put together. Like any professional marketer, I monitor my numerous keywords on a daily basis - especially my major targeted keyword phrases that bring in the most sales and subscribers. For years now, I have had top rankings in Google for my chosen phrases; they move up and down, but mostly they don't leave the first page.


• Beam it up: Tiny projectors to magnify cell-phone cinema - Technology Review
  Recognizing that it is not much fun to watch movies on a tiny cell phone, a number of companies are racing to develop gadgets that project what's playing on the small screen onto walls, table cloths and other handy surfaces. ''Pico projectors'' that are small enough to carry around in a shirt pocket are expected on the market later this year. Eventually, the technology will be tiny enough to be built into phones and portable media players, the companies say.

Daily Roundup for 2008-04-07

• Busting a Rogue Blogger
  Of the many blogs born last May, Patent Troll Tracker seemed as innocuous as any. Its focus: the obscure but controversial subject of "patent trolls," a derogatory term used to describe businesses that make money by purchasing patents and then suing big companies for infringement. The author was clearly no fan of the practice, but his or her identity was a mystery. The "about me" section of the blog noted that the writer was simply "a patent lawyer trying to gather and organize information about patent litigation."  Through regular, copious posts, Troll Tracker quickly drew a devoted following in patent law circles, even among those who disagreed with its point of view. What readers didn't know, however, was that the blogger was Rick Frenkel, in-house patent counsel at Cisco Systems (CSCO), the Internet infrastructure giant.


• Ad Spending Grows on News Sites, But... - eMarketer
  Ad spending on newspaper Web sites increased to $3.2 billion in 2007, up 18.8% over 2006, according to preliminary estimates released by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) in late March.  The trade group said that online ad spending accounted for 7.5% of all newspaper ad spending in 2007, up from 5.7% in 2006.

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-21

• Report ranks Washington and Baltimore hotbed for investors - Washington Business Journal:
  The Washington and Baltimore region was the nation's fifth fastest-growing area for venture capital funding in the last decade, according to a report released Tuesday. In 2007, 180 Washington and Baltimore companies received nearly $1.3 billion in venture capital backing, the MoneyTree Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association said. That number is up 130 percent from $558.24 million put into 105 companies in 1997.  The report lists Timonium, Md.-based Grotech Capital Group and Chevy Chase-based New Enterprise Associates as the most active investors in the region. The top industries for investments around the region were software, life sciences and telecommunications.


• Affluent Hobnob on Social Networks - eMarketer
  The rate of affluent US Internet user participation in online social networks increased dramatically to 60% in January 2008, from 27% in January 2007, according to The Luxury Institute's latest WealthSurvey "The Wealthy and Web 2.0."  "While some in the luxury industry are still debating e-commerce, search and banner ads, the majority of their customers have leaped into the online dialogue," said Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute. "Luxury needs to catch up quickly."

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-19

• Woman to record industry: Stop spying
  A woman who claims the recording industry's anti-music piracy campaign threatens and intimidates innocent people has filed a new complaint accusing record companies of racketeering, fraud and illegal spying.


• Startup RatePoint bets that people want user reviews refereed - Technology Review
  One of the great things about the Internet is the way people post reviews on just about anything you are considering trying, whether it is a movie, a new restaurant or the local florist.  This also introduces one of the worst things about the Internet: trying to figure out which reviews to trust. Was that effusive praise written surreptitiously by the merchant? Was that anonymous online slam posted by a devious competitor?  The dilemma might be unavoidable in this age of abundant user-generated content, when we have to be smarter about separating signals from noise. But a startup called RatePoint Inc. begs to differ. It wants to play referee, giving consumers more clarity into a business' reputation and protecting the business from unwarranted blights on its credibility.

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-08

• Jeremy Siegel on Politicians, Prices and a Potential 'Buying Opportunity of the Decade' - Knowledge@Wharton
  The U.S. Presidential race has reached a critical juncture. The Republicans have a confirmed nominee in John McCain; as for the Democrats, Hillary Clinton has bounced back, while Barack Obama retains a marginal lead in terms of delegates. How the presidential race evolves will be shaped in part by the increasingly worrisome state of the U.S. economy. Consumer prices are rising, oil has crossed $103 a barrel and gold is nudging $1,000 an ounce -- suggesting that the economy could be entering a phase of 1970s-style stagflation. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, however, told Congress last week that he doesn't anticipate stagflation, and he continues to indicate his willingness to keep cutting interest rates. What lies ahead for the U.S. and world economies? Knowledge@Wharton discussed these questions and more with finance professor Jeremy Siegel, author of The Future for Investors.


• Ecommerce Blogging: Who, What And When: Well-written blogs create credibility, interest
  Last month I talked about blogging platforms and the value blogging can bring to ecommerce sites. When a website makes the decision to begin a blog and decides upon a blogging platform, it will then have to decide who will blog and how often. Time allotted to blogging is also a relative issue, as is subject matter. So why bother at all?  Relative to static ecommerce sites, search engines consider blogs more real and trusted because blogs tend to have fresh content and there is a less financial, more informational link between a blog and its readers. An ecommerce site should take advantage of this tendency by adding a blog to augment the overall site.

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-07

• Sites With Anti-Fraud Sign Still Flawed - The Associated Press
  When a small padlock appears in the corner of your Web browser's address bar or the entire bar turns green, it seems like a powerful signal you're safe to proceed.  But experts say the SSL certificates those green lights signify — digital stamps of approval that Web sites buy to prove they're running a legitimate business and can send and receive encrypted data safely — don't provide the safety they seem to.  "They instill some sense of security, but that could be a dangerously false sense of security," said Paul Mutton, a researcher with UK-based security firm Netcraft Ltd.  The site itself could still be riddled with security holes for hackers to exploit. And the certificate could simply be bogus: Criminals have been forging them to get the padlock icon and dress up fraudulent sites.


• Web 2.0's Long Road to IPOs
  During the Web's heyday, a profitable Internet company nearing $100 million in annual sales while luring a million new customers a month would have found itself on the IPO fast track. But that's hardly the case for LinkedIn, a professional networking site that has cleared those hurdles and then some.  Instead, LinkedIn is hewing closely to the Web economy's new motto on initial public offerings: Easy does it. Founded in 2003, LinkedIn may not sell shares until some time next year. Likewise, social networking site Facebook, worth $15 billion on paper, may not go public until 2010,

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-03

• Lessons in building a better widget
  By giving an audience widgets that provide a service and make their lives more interesting or convenient your brand will be on its way to far more free real estate than you ever expected.  In helping brands develop widget presences, I can say that for brand managers and agencies alike, the first time through can be an emotional roller coaster. Early in the process, brainstorming sessions are filled with far-flung, fantastic ways to bring enterprise information into the everyday lives of the audience.


• Comparison shopping engines more important for some products than others - InternetRetailer.com
  Comparison shopping engines are an important part of the e-commerce channel marketing mix, Scot Wingo, CEO of e-commerce channel management services vendor ChannelAdvisor Corp., tells Internet Retailer. But they’re a better spend for some categories than for others, he adds.  Wingo says, for example, that comparison shopping engines are strong in categories such as consumer electronics, less so with products such as apparel and jewelry. That disparity is partially a function of how matching on the engines works. Consumer electronics products have a multitude of hard attributes that lend themselves to point-to-point comparison, for example, while jewelry and apparel selection relies more on a shopper’s subjective opinion.  That said, ChannelAdvisor customers spend anywhere from 15% to as much as 40% of their online marketing dollars on comparison shopping engines

Daily Roundup for 2008-03-02

• The Psychology Of Buying - Behavioral Insider
  The recently launched 7 Billion People is an intriguing application to e-commerce of the real-world psychology behind buying behaviors. As CEO Mark Nagaitis tells us, his new Web analytics system tries to discern in a site's audience different "buying personalities" that marketers can talk with in very different ways.


• InternetNews Realtime IT News – Americans' e-Commerce Conundrum
  A new study from the Pew Internet Project casts light on the love-hate relationship many Americans have with e-commerce. In response to the survey, 78 percent of U.S. Internet users said that online shopping is convenient, and 68 percent said it saves time. Yet, 75 percent said they don't like giving out personal information like a credit card number over the Internet.  The security risks, real or perceived, are hampering the growth of the Internet economy, said John Horrigan, associate director of the Pew Internet Project and author of the report.

Daily Roundup for 2008-02-29

• New York Comes to Silicon Valley
  The relationship between the venture capitalists of Sand Hill Road and the securities firms and power investors of Wall Street has long been a cozy one. VCs hoping for a return on their investments will need banks eventually, while Wall Street needs VCs to nurture the most promising startups until they're ready to go public.  Or do they?  Lately, some of New York's biggest players have been cherry-picking the best pre-IPO investments for themselves.


• Yelp Critiques Heard and Heeded in D.C. - washingtonpost.com
  Although the tiny, family-run Joy's Spa and Nail Salon in Adams Morgan may never get a critique in a newspaper, it's received 42 reviews on Yelp.com.  Reggie Tull, the owner's son and a massage therapist, said he noticed an increase in traffic with every new review posted on the recommendation site. He's also surprised by the time writers invest in each posting.

The eMarket for Lemons at The Wharton School

I had the opportunity to speak at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania last week about an article that Dr. Eric Clemons recently authored for the Journal of Management Information Systems, "An Empirical Investigation of Third-Party Seller Rating Systems in E-Commerce: The Case of buySAFE".  My presentation was focused on marketplace economics and specifically about information asymmetry, signaling, the "Market for Lemons" concept, and buySAFE.  In addition, I was able to share a few thoughts about my entrepreneurial experience with buySAFE.

As always, I had a great time as the guest of Dr. Eric Clemons, and I enjoyed hearing the passionate questions, insights and feedback from the students.  One of the students posted an article about my visit on his blog, The Un-Wharton. 

AuctionBytes Conducts Online Shopping Survey

AuctionBytes.com, one of my favorite ecommerce news sources, is conducting another survey to study online shopping behavior.  The survey explores a number of areas that are important for small business ecommerce merchants to fully understand about their customers.  If you have a few extra minutes, I encourage you to complete this survey.  Ina Steiner, the editor, will publish the survey results in a few weeks, and I will make sure to share with you as well.

You can complete the survey here >> http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=vX4t6OvcNW0_2fO8NFL8pFuA_3d_3d

The eMarket for Lemons and The University of Maryland

Last week, I had the opportunity to speak to a few hundred business school students at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland.  Michael Beveridge, buySAFE's VP of Business Intelligence, joined me in speaking at the invitation of Professors Guodong (Gordon) Gao, Peter Weiss, and Mingfeng Lin.  The students had previously read "buySAFE - Creating and Profiting From the Bonded Seller Advantage", a case study on buySAFE authored by Wharton professor, Dr. Eric Clemons.  Here is the presentation that Michael and I shared with the students... "eMarket for Lemons - The Economics of an Evolving eCommerce Marketplace".

As always, it was a terrific experience for me.  The students were extremely prepared, and they had definitely done their homework on buySAFE, information asymmetry, and the ecommerce marketplace in general.  If you ever want to get an excellent sense of how well your marketing efforts are working or how well you are educating the market about your solution, I highly recommend inviting a couple hundred college students to study your product or service and let them give you feedback.  I loved it!

Read more about Dr. Guodong (Gordon) Gao >>

A Few Interesting, Recent eCommerce and Entrepreneurship Articles

Good morning everyone!  If you know me well, you know that I am a voracious reader of anything and everything that I believe is interesting or useful either personally or professionally.  My colleagues will attest to the fact that their Inbox usually has at least one article that I have recent found that might be useful for them or buySAFE. :)

Today, I have been catching-up on my reading list, and I thought I would share with you a few articles that I found interesting.  Hopefully, you will some of the info interesting as well.

Steve

Google is an advertising cheapskate!

What is the most valuable brand in the world?  Google is the number one brand in the world with an estimated value of $66 billion according consulting firm Millward Brown Optimor. 
This got me thinking... How did Google become the most valuable brand in the world in just a short nine years?  As the Founder of a consumer-focused internet company, I find this question very interesting.  Conventional wisdom would suggest that Google must spend billions of dollars in advertising every year to accomplish such an impressive feat.

Well after a bit of research, one thing becomes clear... Google is an advertising cheapskate!

Build Buyer Trust to Drive Holiday Revenue

How can you drive up your holiday revenue?  Build trust with your buyers!  That's right.  By simply spending a bit of time and energy thinking about how your consumers do their searching, shopping, and decision-making, you can increase your holiday revenues in a material fashion.

On Wednesday, October 24, 2007 at 11:00-12:00 PM MDT, I will be giving an educational webinar sponsored by Infopia and buySAFE on the subject of building trust with your buyers to drive up your revenues and profits.

If you can spare an hour of your time, I promise you that you will learn something new and interesting.  If you are serious about building your online business, this will be time well spent.

Space is limited, so please register for the webinar as soon as you get a moment.  You can register at https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/890705170.

Related articles:
"Infopia Integrates with buySAFE" - Infopia Blog

buySAFE and ScanAlert (HACKER SAFE) Announce a Major Trust, Safety and Security Partnership

This week, buySAFE and ScanAlert, the provider of the Hacker Safe service, announced a huge partnership, and in my opinion, this is a great development for e-commerce.

Under the terms of the deal, ScanAlert will provide buySAFE's Certified Merchant solution for free to its merchants during the HACKER SAFE account activation process and from within the account management console.  In addition, buySAFE will make ScanAlert's PCI validation services available to its merchants for free as well.  This is truly a terrific combination for merchants and buyers.

Obviously, buyers want to find the right product at the right price.  Once that has been accomplished, buyers basically care about two things when considering whether or not to make a purchase online...

1. Am I going to get what I pay for?
2. Is my private information going to be safe?

buySAFE is the best in the world at making sure buyers will get what they paid for.  buySAFE does this by rigorously inspecting its merchants' sales experience, online reputation, identity, and financial stability.  Then, buySAFE monitors the merchant's transactional history, in real time, for any sign of transactional or business default.  Finally and perhaps most importantly, buySAFE puts its money where its mouth is bonding the transactions of buySAFE merchants up to $25,000 per transaction if requested.

Hacker Safe is amongst the best in the world at ensuring that buyers' private information is going to be safe.  They accomplish this goal by performing daily vulnerability scanning of their merchants' websites.  This helps to make sure that the merchants' websites are secure and difficult for bad guys to breach. 

Both companies are industry leaders in the online trust, safety and security world, and both have thousands of merchant customers using their services.

Again, it important for merchants to understand that their shoppers are concerned with two things...  and Will I get what I paid for, and is my private information going to be safe?   Optimal web site conversion metrics can only be achieved by answering both of these questions credibly.  Together, buySAFE and ScanAlert are a powerful combination that will benefit merchants, buyers, and the entire e-commerce industry.

Related articles:
"buySAFE & HACKER SAFE in a Ground Breaking Announcement - Enabling Risk-Free eCommerce" on the buySAFE blog
"BuySafe Partners with ScanAlert/Hackersafe and CRE Loaded" on AuctionBytes.com

Scam of the Month - Judge Judy Punishes an Idiotic eBay Fraudster!

In this "scam of the month", Judge Judy takes on an eBay fraudster and ultimately hands out the maximum punishment.  In spite of the fact that this scam seems audaciously ridiculous, it is actually quite common online.  Bottom-line, there are a lot of folks out there that lack any semblance of a moral compass.

My inspiration for starting buySAFE was a similar scam that I fell victim to on eBay during the summer of 2000.  The only major differences that I can point to are that I purchased a $400 PDA, and instead of taking the scammer to court with Judge Judy, I decided to instead start a company dedicated to making every online transaction trusted, reliable and risk-free... buySAFE!

Next time, I hope these two innocent victims limit their purchases to buySAFE merchants.  It will save them a whole lot of anguish and effort!

Watch this video.  It is quite enlightening.

Related articles:
"Judge Judy Episode on eBay Trust & Safety" on Psychohistory blog

The Wharton School and Entrepreneurship

The Wharton Business Plan Competition took place earlier this month, and NP Solutions was the big winner for 2007. The new venture took home the $20,000 grand prize for a business that provides a polymer based injectable hydrogel treatment for back pain.  Obviously, I wish these folks a bunch of luck with their new business.

As you may already know, I am a big fan of these collegiate competitions.  buySAFE (formerly known as BondMyAuction) is a product of the Wharton Business Plan Competition, and so I can speak from experience when I say that these events can be very useful in getting entrepreneurial ventures launched.  I actually entered the business plan competition in 2000 and 2001 with different ventures as a student.

Then after graduation, I teamed up with Peter Niessen, a 2002 MBA grad, to enter BondMyAuction in the 2002 Wharton Business Plan Competition (You need at least one current student on your team to participate, but the rest of the team can be alums, etc...).  Peter was a terrific teammate, and he and I were able to make it to the Finals of the competition.  Again, it was a great experience, and you can read about it in this recent article by the New York Times - "Beyond Grades: Business Students Put Their Start-Up Ideas to the Test"

One last interesting note for you...

Jeff Grass, buySAFE's CEO, was also a finalist in the Wharton Business Plan competition in 1999 along with his business partner, John Tedesco (John is currently the CEO & President of Guardian Mobile Monitoring Systems).  Jeff and John launched PayMyBills.com shortly after graduation, and they ultimately sold the company to PayTrust in 2000.  Today, the company's service is owned by Intuit, and it powers the bill payment and management solutions for some of the country's largest financial institutions.

Needless to say, collegiate business plan competitions can provide aspiring entrepreneurs with a generous leg up on the formidable challenges of starting up a company out of school.  For me, the Wharton Business Plan Competition experience was invaluable.

eBay Merchant Economics

I recently asked Michael Beveridge, buySAFE's Sr. Director of Business Intelligence, to share with us some of the interesting eCommerce data that buySAFE has developed over the last eighteen months.  We consider data and analytics to be critical to buySAFE and our merchant customers' businesses, and obviously, every merchant is interested in having solid, reliable data on the ROI associated with buySAFE.  At the request of hundreds of our merchant customers, buySAFE has invested heavily into developing an amazing data and analytics platform that can deliver incredible insights beneficial to buySAFE Merchants.  We will be sharing some of our new insights with you over the coming months, and I hope you enjoy the content. With that intro, here is Michael Beveridge's first contribution to this blog...

Important eCommerce Trust and Safety Statistics

At the PESA Summit this past week, there was a lot of talk about how to improve e-commerce conversion rates. I believe there are three critical drivers for conversion: product selection, price, and trust. Each of these issues would provide substantial content for an article, but I thought I would dedicate today's post to a number of very important trust-related statistics.

If you have any doubt about the role of trust and buyer confidence in your e-commerce business success, please take a quick look at these stats.

• 55% of online shoppers say trustworthiness of the merchant is most important (vs. price, convenience, pleasure, other)
  (Source: Online Shopper Research Report, 959 respondents, August 2006)
  

• 65% of online shoppers buy only from sites they know and trust
  (Source: VeriSign Secured Seal Research Review 08/06)
  

• 72% of online shoppers are becoming more cautious when buying online
  (Source: Gartner Research, 5000 respondents, May 2005 survey)
  

• 73% of online shoppers are concerned about the item being misrepresented (inaccurately described, counterfeit)
  (Source: Online Shopper Research Report, 959 respondents, 08/06)
  

• 76% of online shoppers are worried about never getting their purchase
  (Source: Online Shopper Research Report, 959 respondents, 08/06)
  

• 81% of online shoppers are concerned about merchant return/refund policies not being honored
  (Source: Online Shopper Research Report, 959 respondents, 08/06)
  

• 84% of online shoppers are concerned about merchants not treating them fairly
  (Source: Online Shopper Research Report, 959 respondents, 08/06)
  

• 85% of online shoppers are concerned about identity theft
  (Source: TNS Research, 08/06) 
  

• And, amazingly, over 50% of all U.S. internet users still don’t buy online (even from Amazon.com!).
  (Source: Bear Stearns, September 2006)
  

With respect to this last statistic, "trust" issues are the primary driver of e-commerce non-participation. Amazingly, more than 50% of your potential customers will not buy online because they are nervous! Are you kidding me? That is a huge number, and obviously, the time has come for the e-commerce industry to take this issue seriously.

buySAFE and eBay Live 2007

It's official. buySAFE is going to throw a terrific event in Boston the second week of June.  However, the company has decided to skip exhibiting at eBay's annual conference, eBay Live. Instead, buySAFE has decided that it would rather participate in a number of other e-commerce conferences that it believes provide better return on investment including the huge Internet Retailer Conference in San Jose. You can read about buySAFE's eBay LIve 2007 decision on the buySAFE blog article - "Are You Going to eBay Live?".

I have a lot to say on this subject that I believe you will find quite interesting.  However, in the interest of time this morning, I will have to revisit my eBay Live thoughts in the coming weeks.  Please stay tuned.

See you in Boston!

eCommerce's "Shoot the Messenger" Strategy

When it comes to online fraud, the e-commerce industry seems to hate looking itself in the mirror.  Specifically, e-commerce executives cringe at the mere mention of the existence of online fraud.  Their first reaction is almost always to blame the messenger for sharing tough information about the industry rather than actually tackling the core issues driving the online fraud that victimizes consumers for millions of dollars every day.

I ran across the following quote from Scot Wingo of ChannelAdvisor in this blog post regarding eBay's VP of Trust & Safety appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show:

"Unfortunately it's never a positive when there's someone with Oprah's reach out there associating eBay+fraud so I think it was a net negative."

I have learned from experience that Scot Wingo is a very smart guy, and he has proven to be a vocal educator regarding the e-commerce industry.  When necessary, he has also had the courage to stand up and point out what isn't working in the e-commerce industry.  My interpretation of Wingo's comment is that Chestnut's appearance wasn't a good thing for eBay's short-term prospects or stock price.  I would agree with that.  However, I do not believe Wingo was suggesting that coverage and discussion of online fraud problems are a bad thing for eBay or e-commerce in the long-run.  If that was his suggestion, I would disagree with that.

Scot's comment did make me think about an alternative point of view that I have heard many times from e-commerce executives over the years. I often the hear the following question from execs almost verbatim: 

"Don't you think that by talking about online fraud you are blowing the issue up way beyond proportion and scaring consumers away from e-commerce?"

When I hear that question, I cringe because it displays a fundamental lack of wisdom.  Wake up everybody!

Today, more than 50% of all online surfers don't buy ANY merchandise online!  That is a ridiculously high number, and when surveyed, these non-buyer internet surfers overwhelmingly cite distrust of and nervousness about e-commerce transactions.  Is that because the industry talks about the online fraud problem too much?  No!  It is because online fraud is, in fact, a huge problem as reported by many sources including the Federal Trade Commission.  Almost everybody knows somebody that has been burned on the internet.  Don't you?  The 50% of internet surfers that avoid eCommerce do so because, to date, the industry hasn't solved the problem for consumers. 

The industry consistently takes half-steps so that it can tell the press and consumers that "we are doing something".  My honest opinion is that it is a bit of joke (You will want to tune in tomorrow for a very specific example that will probably shock you.), and any smart e-commerce executive knows that is true.

Buyer protection plans and merchant rating systems are simply not enough.  If, for example, eBay's Feedback Rating system and PayPal's Buyer Protection were enough to make it completely safe for consumers, why does Chestnut have to go on Oprah and explain the issue?  Well, of course, he wouldn't.

If a crime happens in your neighborhood, most people want to know about it immediately so that they can take specific steps to protect themselves in the future.  It is no different in your online neighborhood.  Ignoring the problem of online fraud and shooting any messenger that points out that a problem exists is not going to help solve the problem.

In the long-run, Oprah's coverage of online fraud is a very good thing for eBay, e-commerce, online merchants and consumers!  Let me say that again... Disclosure, coverage, and discussion of the online fraud problem will help and inspire the industry to identify solutions that will be critical to the success of this industry in the long run.

The minute an effective, comprehensive solution to online frauds is adopted, consumers will buy merchandise on the internet like never before.  The minute we stop blowing smoke and we start solving the problem will be the minute e-commerce starts to tap into the ~100 million internet surfers who we can't currently count as customers.

Consumers want us to make it completely safe for them to buy online.  We owe it to folks to do just that. Don't shoot the messenger!  Understand the problem.  Discuss and debate it.  Then solve it!

Proposed solution to e-commerce-related fraud:
A trusted, objective, regulated third party needs to investigate the backgrounds, history and financial stability of online merchants and then, if the third party is willing to endorse the merchant, the trust & safety company needs to put its money where its mouth is by fully protecting consumers for any deviation from the promised terms of sale.  Obviously, that is what buySAFE does.

Related blog posts:
"buySAFE Invited By French Government to Help Stop Online Sales of Counterfeit Luxury Goods" by Travis Brown
"Stop Worrying! How to Solve the eCommerce Trust Problem. (A must read if you sell or buy online!)" by Jeff Grass
"What's Wrong With eBay? It's Simple Economics" by Steve Woda
"What is a 'Market for Lemons'?" by Steve Woda
"What's Wrong With eBay? It's Simple Economics" by PowerSeller King

Where Can You Meet the Largest Merchants on eBay?

Every couple of months, the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance (PESA) pulls together a collection of eBay's largest, most successful merchants.  These events are always terrific opportunities to meet experienced e-commerce professionals, and to get an insider's view of how the e-commerce market is developing.  Next week, PESA will convene its sixth PESA Summit in Chicago.

buySAFE has attended every one of these remarkable semi-annual events.  In fact, we have sponsored every PESA event since the organization's inception, so we are obviously a huge supporter of this organization.

Therefore, I wanted to give next week's PESA Summit a mini-plug.  If you are a professional merchant or simply interested in e-commerce because you are a member of the media, a financial analyst or a third-party service provider, you should attend this event.  You won't be sorry.  You will meet amazing folks and get the inside scoop on where e-commerce and eBay are headed.  Christie Hefner of Playboy Enterprises will be giving the Keynote Address.

As a side note, I will be speaking at the PESA Summit on an interesting panel of e-commerce experts including Jonathan Gariss (CEO for GothamCityOnline), Sloan Gaon (VP of Global Strategy for MIVA), and Jimmy Duvall (Director of e-Commerce Products for Yahoo! Small Business).  The Website Design & Web 2.0 panel should be very interesting, and I will provide a summary of the discussion on this blog after the event.

I am looking forward to it, and I hope you can find your way to Chicago for this terrific event.

Does eBay Have a Credibility Gap With Merchants in 2007?

As 2007 begins to come into focus, I thought it might be interesting to revisit an experienced PowerSeller's perspective on eBay.  Frank Ross writes the Common Sense eCommerce blog, and in November 2006, Frank provided his commentary on eBay's evolving relationship with e-commerce merchants.  Please give his blog post a quick review - "eBay Credibility Gap 2007".

Obviously, 2006 was a tough year for eBay and its merchants.  We regularly get emails on this subject from readers of this blog as well e-commerce merchants that work with buySAFE, and I don't believe 2007 is turning out to be much better.  However, I would love to hear from our readers.

If you are an e-commerce merchant, we would love to hear from you on this subject.  Please leave a comment on this post if you have thoughts on eBay and its evolving relationship with e-commerce merchants.

Technorati Tags: eBay, eCommerce, Economics

eMarket for Lemons at Baruch College

I was recently invited by Dr. Karl Lang to be a guest lecturer at Baruch College on the subject of buySAFE and my experience starting an e-commerce business.  I always love speaking to folks about buySAFE and its important value proposition (Making sure that buyers get what they pay for, and that merchants get paid what they deserve.), but I especially enjoy speaking with college students (in this case they were MBAs) about what I believe is happening with e-commerce today.

As many of you know, I believe there is a fundamental problem emerging with e-commerce.  Specifically, the problem is that buyers have a very difficult time reliably telling the difference between good sellers/product and bad sellers/product.  In economic terms, this is called "information asymmetry".  Sure, if you are large, recognizable brand, buyers know they can trust you.  However, if a merchant is unknown to a buyer, how in the world can that buyer reliably figure out if everything is going to be 100% okay?  The answer is that it is very difficult for them to do so confidently.

When a marketplace suffers from information asymmetry, it inevitably develops into a "Market for Lemons".  You can read my previous blog post on the subject at "What is a Market for Lemons?"

Obviously, buySAFE solves this major e-commerce problem, and as of Q2 2007, there are thousands of online merchants that have signed-up for the buySAFE service in order to help mitigate this issue for shoppers.

I thought you might like to see the presentation I gave the MBA students at Baruch.  You can download the "eMarket for Lemons" presentation here, or you can view the presentation below.

I want to thank give a special thanks to Dr. Lang for inviting me to speak at Baruch College, and I especially want to thank the MBA students for their fascinating questions and additional insights.

buySAFE Founder Guarantees Delivery by The Washington Times

The Washington Times recently did a nice article on buySAFE, and of course, I appreciated the generous coverage as well.

"buySAFE Founder Guarantees Delivery" by The Washington Times

I hope you enjoy the read.

Related articles & blog posts:
AuctionWire
TMCnet

buySAFE on The Today Show!

The past few days have been quite exciting here at buySAFE.  Last week, buySAFE was featured on The Today Show.  The "Designer Duds: Fake or Real?" segment, reported by Today's consumer affairs reporter Janice Lieberman, discussed the growing e-commerce problem of counterfeit luxury goods.  As expected, buySAFE was showcased as a terrific solution to the counterfeit goods problem.

Counterfeit/fake/stolen goods are obviously becoming a major issue for e-commerce, but in my opinion, this problem is actually a symptom of a much larger, more important, fundamental problem... Online, buyers have a very difficult time discriminating good sellers/product from bad sellers/product.  The REAL problem is that the Web suffers from major information asymmetry issues.  That is why bad guys are successful at defrauding consumers. 

Please think about my diagnosis for a moment... If consumers could tell the difference from the good guys and the bad guys, would shoppers ever unknowingly buy a counterfeit item?  Of course not!  Fraud happens because of information asymmetry.

I think you will find the "Designer Duds: Fake or Real?" news segment very interesting.  However, as you watch this clip, please understand that the counterfeit/fake/stolen goods fraud problem is due to a more fundamental e-commerce problem... Buyers can't reliably tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys!  In economic terms, this is called information asymmetry, and it is causing legitimate, professional merchants millions of dollars each and every day.

Kudos to Jeff Grass, buySAFE's CEO, for a job well done!

Related blog posts and e-commerce articles:
"Designer Duds: Fake or Real?" by Janice Lieberman on The Today Show and iVillage.com
"buySAFE Invited By the French Government to Help Stop Online Sales of Counterfeit Luxury Goods" by Travis Brown on the buySAFE blog
"eBay Bonding Service buySAFE Featured on Today Show" by Ina Steiner on AuctionBytes.com
"buySAFE Appearance on 3/20/2007 Today Show" on AuctionBytes.tv

Stop Worrying! How to Solve the eCommerce Trust Problem.

Jeff Grass, buySAFE's CEO, recently posted a comprehensive article on the eCommerce Trust problem, and how buySAFE is specifically designed to tackle this big issue.  Jeff does a great job of laying out the requirements for effective online trust and safety solutions, and I thought you might enjoy the read.

"Stop Worrying! How to Solve the eCommerce Trust Problem. (A must read if you sell or buy online!)" by Jeff Grass on buySAFE's blog

If you have any thoughts, insights, or comments on Jeff's article, I would be very interested in hearing from you.

France, Luxury Goods, and the Counterfeit Problem

Travis Brown, buySAFE's General Counsel & VP of International, recently spent a week in France as a guest of the French government.  The purpose of the trip was to learn more about the exploding counterfeit goods industry, and to explain how bonding merchants and buySAFE could significantly mitigate this  huge problem.

I found Travis' post to be one of the best I have ever read on the issue of counterfeit goods, and I am sure you will agree.  I encourage you to give it a quick read.

"buySAFE Invited By French Government to Help Stop Online Sales of Counterfeit Luxury Goods" by Travis Brown on buySAFE's blog

I am very interested in your thoughts and insights regarding the counterfeiting issue, so please share.

Related articles and blog posts:
"buySAFE Takes on the Issue of Counterfeit (Knock Off) Merchandise" by Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds

Wake Up With buySAFE on The Today Show

It’s been a lot of fun (not to mention a lot of hard work ;-) to see buySAFE grow from an idea in my head into a company that is changing the face of e-commerce. Knowing how far we’ve come makes it exceptionally rewarding when major, national news outlets cover buySAFE and the impact we are having.

One such news outlet – The Today Show on NBC – will be including buySAFE in a story that will run tomorrow, March 20 shortly after 8:00 a.m. Consumer reporter Janice Lieberman spent the day at buySAFE headquarters last week as part of a piece about the prevalence of counterfeit luxury goods being sold online. With consumers often unknowingly buying knockoff merchandise, it’s tough to know how to protect yourself from becoming a victim.

Fortunately, buySAFE solves this problem. By certifying that a merchant is trustworthy and reputable, identifying the merchant with the buySAFE Seal, and taking the extra step to guarantee the transaction, buySAFE ensures a safe, smooth transaction for consumers every time. Rather than worrying about having bought a fake, shoppers that buy from a buySAFE Merchant can rest easy knowing that they’re dealing with one of the safest merchants anywhere.

I encourage you all to tune in the Today Show tomorrow, March 20th at 8:00 a.m. to see how buySAFE is making e-commerce safer and more efficient for everyone involved.

Auction Fraud Tops FBI's 2006 Internet Crime Report

As reported by Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds, auction fraud continues to be a huge problem.

The FBI has released its 2006 Internet Crime Report, and 45% of the Internet crime complaints in 2006 were for auction fraud.  You can read the Internet Crime Report here.

I have to be quite honest.  I am pretty disappointed in our Internet industry.  I believe there are too many folks willing to ignore this issue in the interest of making millions of dollars in profits.  Consumers continue to bear the brunt of the industry neglect, and in my humble opinion, the thinking is too short-term.  If these problems continue to get worse, it could permanently damage and alter the ecommerce landscape.

What do Digg and eBay Have in Common?

Written by Guest Blogger, Lauren Davis - Georgetown Law student

What do Digg and eBay have in common?  Their rating systems are under assault by the fraudsters, and in some cases, this mischief is undermining the systems' credibility and effectiveness.

There has been a great deal of buzz surrounding a recent article in Wired magazine. The piece, entitled “Herding the Mob,” notes that online retail sites, such as eBay and Yahoo Auctions, and social bookmarking sites, including Digg, del.icio.us, and Reddit, share a common problem: the gaming of their community-based systems.

MySpace is Your Space. EverybodySpace.com

Written by Guest Blogger, Marc Morel - Director of Product Management, buySAFE

Web 2.0 has been ruling our world for several years now. We have all been posting, rating, blogging, podcasting, and commenting on everything from politics to the latest ball game we went to watch. This is power to the masses. And the world got better. But, did it really? I am not so sure...

The buySAFE Revolution?

Could 2007 be the year for The buySAFE Revolution?  I obviously hope so.

Brian Smith at Comparison Engines recently did a comprehensive post analyzing buySAFE's prospects in 2007, and I thought you might enjoy the read.

"The buySAFE Revolution - 2007" by Comparison Engines

Brian writes a terrific blog, and if you are interested in eCommerce, you need to regularly check out his insights.

We obviously have a lot of work in front of us, but so far this year, buySAFE has added numerous distribution partnerships that enable tens of thousands of merchants to use buySAFE.  In addition, some of the largest merchants in eCommerce are now using buySAFE on their websites.  I hope I can report back to you this time next year with news that 2007 was, in fact, the year of The buySAFE Revolution!

Related blog posts:
"buySAFE News Update" by Jeff Grass, buySAFE Blog

buySAFE for MIVA Merchant 5

Yesterday, buySAFE and MIVA launched buySAFE's trust and safety solution for all MIVA 5 Merchant customers.  This is exciting news for buySAFE, MIVA, MIVA's hosting partners, and most importantly, MIVA's merchants. 

If you are a MIVA merchant, you can begin using buySAFE on your website store with just a few minutes worth of effort.  Not only will you be able to drive up your store's conversion rates by bonding your eCommerce sales with buySAFE, you can use buySAFE for FREE!  It won't cost MIVA's merchants one penny to use buySAFE on their website stores. 

In addition, if you upgrade your buySAFE account from a Trial account to a Full account (it is still free!), buySAFE will pay you a revenue bonus on each and every bonded transaction going forward.  Yes.  You heard me right.  Not only is buySAFE free for MIVA Merchant 5 customers, but buySAFE will pay merchants to use buySAFE. 

Finally, James Harrell, General Manager of MIVA Small Business, also announced additional incentives of up to $5,000 for installing and using buySAFE.  Obviously, we seriously believe that once merchants try buySAFE, they will love buySAFE!

This is exciting news for MIVA because it provides MIVA's merchants with a proven tool for driving higher conversion rates and sales.  MIVA is dedicated to giving its merchants cutting edge services, and this is simply the latest initiative on their part to do that.

If you are a MIVA hosting partner (premier or standard), this is big news because the buySAFE for MIVA Merchant 5 product can provide a significant new revenue stream for hosting companies.  You should contact MIVA or buySAFE for additional details on how you can take advantage of this new revenue opportunity.

For buySAFE, this is exciting news because this morning thousands of MIVA merchants can roll out of bed and, with a few easy steps, activate buySAFE on their websites!  I think that is all I need to say.

Congratulations to the buySAFE and MIVA teams for a job well done.

Survey Reveals Shoppers Are Nervous

I often hear people suggest that since eCommerce is growing so fast, shoppers are obviously perfectly confident and comfortable shopping online.  In my opinion, that is naive, and it ignores the facts. 

During the recent holiday shopping season, a new survey was published confirming that consumers are, in fact, nervous shopping online, and that these concerns are growing, not abating.  buySAFE commissioned an independent firm, InsightExpress, to survey 1,000 random, online shoppers for their views on trust, safety, security and eCommerce.  The eCommerce survey reveals that small and medium-sized retailers without well-known brand names are the big losers when it comes to nervous shoppers.  More than 1/3 of shoppers, 35%, feel "unsafe" when considering purchasing from unknown retailers.   

International Visitors Drive eBay Traffic

This AuctionBytes article by Lissa McGrath is a couple of months old, but I find it to be quite fascinating. 

During this past holiday shopping season, about 70% of eBay's website traffic came from beyond the United States' borders.  Wow!  Obviously, the international Internet is the real deal in 2007.  I haven't spent any time independently analyzing this traffic data, but if true, it provides a fascinating view of how the eCommerce marketplace is evolving.

eBay and Seller Certification

Skip McGrath is the CEO of Auction Seller's Resource - a terrific newsletter for professional eBay merchants and for those folks aspiring to make a living on eBay.

Skip recently posted a series of interesting articles on the subject of seller certification on eBay.

Part 1
Can Seller Certification Bring Buyers Back to eBay

Part 2
eBay Selling Tools To Build Your Business by Preventing Fraud

Skip has done a nice job of laying out a number of things to consider, and I encourage you to give his posts a read. 

I believe Seller Certification is part of the answer for eBay (and eCommerce in general), but my big fear is that a bunch of eBay marketing folks will get together and roll out a new "seller certification" program, and that the program will fail to actually do anything meaningful for buyers or the economic health of the eBay marketplace.  Tough, effective "seller certification" programs actually require that you have to tell some sellers that they CAN'T be "certified".  In my experience, marketing folks don't like to tell current or prospective customers that they can't do business together.  Tough, effective certification programs are designed to limit the players on the field, and this is usually counter to everything the marketing folks think about each and every day.

Google's Universal Gadgets

Last month, Google expanded their Gadget product so that you can now add Google Gadgets to any web page on the Internet.  The Google Universal Gadget is a big step beyond the previous incarnation that simply allowed you to add the Google Gadgets to your Google Homepage and Desktop.  I didn't notice this improvement when it was first expanded, so I am bit late to the game.  However, I wanted to point it out to you because I love the product.

Interested developers can build Universal Gadgets by using Google's API, and then users can take the Google Gadget and put it on any web page.

Here is an example using buySAFE's Google Gadget.  All I had to do was go the buySAFE Shopping Google Gadget page, tailor the look and feel of the Gadget, and then cut and paste the following HTML code into my post.

<script src="http://gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.
buysafeshopping.com/bss_module.xml&up_showSearch=1&
up_showCategories=1&up_showWatchList=1&up_searchTerm
=diamond&up_category=-1&up_lowprice=&up_highprice=&
up_sellerName=&up_sort=1&synd=open&w=320&h=450&
title=buySAFE+Shopping&border=%23ffffff%7C0px%2C1px
+solid+%23595959%7C0px%2C1px+solid+%23797979%7C0px
%2C2px+solid+%23898989&output=js"></script>

Voila! The buySAFE Shopping Gadget is up and running on my blog page.  Go ahead and do a quick buySAFE Shopping search via the Gadget below.  In my opinion, this is very cool.

It was very easy to create the buySAFE Shopping Google Gadget, and some developers are reporting that it can take less than 5 minutes to create simple Gadgets.  Check it out and have fun!

Related links:
"Google Universal Gadgets for your website released" by Jason S
"Add and Embed Google Universal Gadgets Modules to Websites and Blogs" by My Digital Life

PayPal to the rescue

Q3 financial results were announced today, and eBay's profits were up 10%.  That is good news for this battered stock, and it appears that lower taxes and PayPal were the major contributors.

buySAFE Announces New Partnership With Travelers

Today, buySAFE announced a new partnership with The St. Paul Travelers Companies, one of the largest financial institutions in the world with more than $113 billion in assets.

The new Travelers relationship adds another major U.S. financial institution to buySAFE's growing team of business partners.  The Hartford Financial Services Group and The Rutherfoord Companies are major investors in buySAFE, and in 2005, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company joined with buySAFE to provide significant surety bond capacity for buySAFE's rapidly growing business on eBay, Overstock.com, and TIAS.

eBay Feedback Farms Undermine Feedback Ratings System

Last week, Ina Steiner documented the basic story of 'Feedback Farms' on eBay.

I have to be honest, these scams continue to amaze me, and one has to conclude that these scams are damaging and undermining the entire feedback/merchant rating system.  If fraudsters can so easily create feedback/merchant ratings in the thousands, then buyers will have to increase their vigilance online.  From a buyer's point of view, it continues to be more and more difficult to truly discern good from bad.

Add Your Phishing Emails to the Phishtank

Phishtank is an interesting new anti-phishing service that recently launched to the public.  Brian Krebs of the Washington Post reviewed Phishtank, and I agree with many of his assessments.

The service is a great idea, and I like many facets of it.  I have always been a big fan of leveraging the collective knowledge of the community to identify and fight the bad guys.

My one issue with the service is the fact that they publish the URLs of the malicious sites on their home page.  People are pretty naive, and there are lots of people that will find this interesting and decide to visit these sites in their browser.  The problem is that these sites often attempt to exploit browser flaws, and surfers can fall victim to them by simply viewing the websites.  Obviously, publishing the URLs of the suspected malicious sites is not a great idea.

Still, I encourage you to check out the Phishtank (don't visit the malicious sites though), and if you find a suspicious website, make sure you add it to the Phishtank.