Trust in Electronic Trade

When I first thought about my own experience with on-line purchases, I could only think of eBay, however, after some consideration I realized that I have purchased a lot of things on-line and have dealt with a variety of scenarios. I have not only purchased from eBay, but also from Amazon.com, Jewelry suppliers, Best Buy, Palm Pilot, eReader and a “groups” sales list. On all of these purchases, I was wary of my first transaction on eBay, after which I haven’t worried since. After reading our assigned articles, I asked myself why I haven’t been more concerned about purchasing on-line.

Kollock, Resnick and Zeckhauser brought up some convincing comments regarding trustworthiness of sellers on-line. So, with some obvious concerns why haven’t I taken heed as a consumer and proceeded more cautiously with on-line transactions. The reason, because I did not feel vulnerable in completing these transactions, I did have a sense of trust that I would be protected.

In retrospect, there were several reasons that I felt this trust. One, companies that have name recognition like Amazon.com, Best Buy and Palm Pilot offer a link on their websites that explain their payment protection policies. Most of these companies have some group they list that offers encryption and failsafe support that protects the use of a credit card for payment. Even though I am not familiar with the group that is offering this protection, I believe that its existence is so and that I will be protected. In addition, I’m sure that I trust Amazon.com and the other companies listed because they are well known and reputable, which relates to the ways that trust is built in brick-n-mortar commerce.

On the other hand, my experience with eBay involved the use of a third-party-payer system, PayPal. I have to admit that I didn’t even think twice about the safety of PayPal, nor did I ever check into one of the seller’s approval rating. I have made purchases from Pokemon cards to digital cameras. In all cases, I have had a positive outcome of my transaction and feel lucky that I was not taken advantage of by one of the “bad apples” that dwell in these venues.
Last, I purchased products from members of a list group that I was on and wholesale jewelry items from unknown vendors and didn’t even question their trustworthiness at the time. I think that, at times, computer mediated communication can provide a sense of intimacy thru interactions that one feels like they know their interlocutors as well as they would had they had face-to-face interactions. During one interaction where I was purchasing gem stones, I misunderstood the price and in doing so sent the wrong amount of money to the seller. I am grateful that she communicated my error to me by calling me on the phone instead of flaming me on the Internet. It is so easy to make mistakes and have misunderstandings like this, but with the distrust that we have in electronic transactions, misunderstandings can escalate out of control.

I think that it is interesting that Kollock, Resnick and Zeckhauser compared on-line commerce with traditional brick-n-mortar commerce because I don’t necessarily see them as radically different. In addition, I think that we should include mail order companies. At any time, with any group, a consumer could feel duped. Because the Internet is new, there has not been sufficient time to establish name and brand recognition like that experienced by brick-n-mortar companies. In the future, there will be better ways to ferret out the “bad apples” so that trade can be made more reliable and satisfactory for the consumer.