9 min read
How to assess an e-retailer’s online reputation before buying online?
Give the e-retailer you are about to trust (with your confidence and a few euros!) a full checkup by learning to read, spot and use its online reputation. Because the devil is in the details. We show you the path to follow to make your online purchases safer.
1. What do people say about the e-retailer online?
It is estimated that 10 to 30% of reviews published on the web are fake, but a great many consumers consider that overall this information is useful because it helps them avoid regretting their choice later on. Whether buying a plane ticket, a new drill or a pair of shoes, reviews abound, so use common sense to spot the ones that will truly be useful to you.
The first step in assessing an e-retailer’s online reputation is a Google search. You will quickly uncover sometimes crucial information by running a search such as [brand], [brand + product + opinions] or [brand + product + reviews], that is, by searching the company name and digging deeper if you find negative links.
Second, be aware that there are certain well-known rating sites (Trusted Shop, Trustpilot, etc.) or review aggregators/comparators ( FIA-NET, Avis-verifies, etc.) to guide the consumer. Here again, you can either look for vendors on these sites or simply make sure that the merchant site using their image is doing so appropriately.
The Fia-net site
Another serious element to assess an e-commerce site is an AFNOR NF Z74-501 certification that exists for customer reviews. It certifies that the reviews are objective1 and could inspire an international standard.
However, entirely fabricated reviews have taken on such an important place in some sectors that they have even generated a parallel industry of fake review creation. The information and sources in the tourism sector are so extensive that it is hard to find your way around. The situation is such that Cornell University in New York tried to address it by creating a detector for suspicious reviews, http://www.reviewskeptic.com/. Feel free to make good use of it!
If you are heading toward American or Canadian sites, check whether the merchant site you are interested in has been audited by the Better Business Bureau2, a private-sector self-regulation system that provides a rating based on criteria such as honest advertising, a trustworthy relationship over time, transparency, etc.
In short, an e-retailer’s online reputation can be laid bare thanks to reviews about the services of an e-commerce site if, at a minimum, you:
. Do not limit yourself to a single source for reviews, but use several platforms.
. Read several reviews, positive ones as well as negative ones.
. Read a few responses from the site’s managers (or from customer service, community manager, etc.).
. Go back a bit in time (read one or two reviews that are 2 or 3 years old).
. Do not hesitate to ask questions via email, chat, etc.
2. Examine the e-retailer’s website in detail
a. Web and/or institutional certificates/certifications
You will find an abundance of institutional logos and certificates of all kinds on most e-commerce sites. To reassure you, many overuse the logos of well-known partners (or ones presented as such): Visa, Mastercard, La Poste, etc.3. Sort through them and single out those that offer real added value to you.
Today, the logos of online payment method providers and security certificates are a must-have (preferably with the links where you can verify the authenticity and reliability of said companies). It would be suspicious not to be able to clearly identify them within the first few minutes of browsing an e-commerce site, usually right at the bottom of the site’s home page.
footer of the deguisetoi.fr site
Some interesting accreditations to spot are specific to an industry. In France, for example, the Fevad (Federation of e-commerce and Distance Selling) invites e-commerce players to sign up to its code of ethics in order to honor various commitments toward the consumer. If the customer service of a website that has subscribed to this charter is unable to properly handle a customer’s request, then the Fevad mediation service, and if necessary the E-commerce Ombudsman, can take over the dispute and bring a solution to it.
Source: cdiscount.com
You have dedicated a few minutes to spotting the clues that could make you doubt an e-commerce site on its web page. Now it is time to gather other information online that will keep you from falling into the traps of the web.
b. Understanding and navigating a site effortlessly should inspire confidence
Do not hesitate to trust your intuition and take a critical look at the website.
First of all, it goes without saying that a site with poorly written text does not inspire confidence. Incomprehensible translations will immediately make you flee. But text that is unclear, too long, or riddled with spelling or grammar mistakes should also raise your doubts4.
Beware of poorly written text on e-retailers’ sites
When everything seems fine, stay on your guard and ask yourself the following questions5:
. Do certain claims or promotions seem too good to be true?
. Are the prices charged exceptionally low?
. Does the site display a phone number, and does it ring endlessly? Is it in France or in an unknown country? Is it a toll-free number, but one that cannot be geolocated?
. Does this e-retailer seem to be an amateur or a professional?
. Does it use a P.O. box without indicating the company’s physical address? A company’s physical address is often difficult to find, even impossible to locate on some foreign sites (= ones that try to make you believe they are French or European, by hiding the fact that they are Asian, for example. This is important to know because some sites based outside the EU will impose, for example, additional fees on Carte Bleue payments.
. Do consumer reviews of the products offered seem credible to you? They are often excellent complements to product descriptions, but are critical voices present among them?
Example of consumer reviews
Once this first approach has been carried out with common sense, you can focus on the services provided by the e-retailer before and after the purchase.
c) The services made available to you
Not all e-retailers put themselves in your shoes, and not all of them listen to their customers either. How can you judge this? Take a tour of the services offered by the merchant site to be certain.
By services, we mean: delivery, after-sales service, and security. Be aware that the Hamon law6, in force since June 13, 2014, strengthens the obligation to inform the consumer about the conditions of these services. For example, all the guarantees offered, the rights of withdrawal, of reimbursement, and the conditions for returning an item must be understandable and clearly stated.
Of course, this law applies to French e-merchants, but any foreign site is supposed to comply with these rules if it clearly targets French customers. In addition, the European harmonization of consumer laws allows you, on EU sites, to benefit from the same level of protection in terms of product warranty and right of withdrawal as on French sites. But if you buy on a site outside the EU, look in detail at the right of withdrawal and return, both regarding the deadlines and the return conditions. If the return costs are your responsibility, it is sometimes possible that their cost will discourage you from sending back a product that does not satisfy you.
Security on the site is essential, particularly at the time of paying by bank card. Check that on this page the connection is secure. The web address begins with “https” instead of “http”, and a padlock appears, often to the left of the address. The https protocol makes it possible to secure the information, but also to verify the identity of the remote server (to see whether their certificate is valid). It therefore also prevents “phishing” by a fake site that would want to pass itself off as the original site.
Likewise, still during payment, you should pay attention to the transaction URL used. Indeed, this transaction URL may differ from the base site’s URL. This is not a problem in itself: it is often a partner of the e-retailer (the payment platform) that generates this URL. This page can give you indications about the company’s corporate name to help you.
Source: https://www.servermode.com/https-ssl-certificate/https-ssl-certificates/
There is no shortage of techniques and information to assess an e-retailer’s online reputation before buying online
In conclusion, to avoid disappointment and secure your purchases, it is best to make sure of e-merchants’ good reputation when buying online. Consumers who want to make a first purchase from an e-retailer they do not know (are often left to their own devices) still too often feel they have to rely on their instinct. But there is no shortage of techniques and information to form an opinion. For an online consumer, the more contact points with an e-merchant multiply across the internet in general, and no longer solely on the e-commerce site, the more likely they are to receive the information needed to make their shopping experience a satisfying one.
E-retailers will win the trust of potential buyers more easily and, moreover, will have much to gain if they stay ahead of problems. By proactively managing their online reputation, that is, by offering more transparency and paying attention to the signals sent out on the web, particularly from social networks, e-merchants will thus develop their ability to respond to problems, crises or bad buzz.
Sources:
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