'Trust me, I'm a .com'

摘要

Surprisingly, one of the leading advertisers on the internet in the past half-year has been TRUSTe, an organisation that assigns seals to e-commerce enterprises which it considers 'trustworthy'. In order to raise its profile, TRUSTe has instigated an internet-based publicity campaign involving between 200 and 700 million weekly impressions for its adverts. Why? The number of B2C (Business to Consumer) e-commerce retailing activities has not reached the dizzying heights predicted 18 months ago. Consumers' 'lack of trust' in e-commerce is widely assumed to be one of the main reasons.