Online shopping fears and how to overcome them

There are several fears associated with online shopping. That’s why people prefer to buy offline instead of buying online. The technology has much potential to reduce these fears to a minimum and it is playing its part. Here, you will find plenty of fears because of which people are not willing to buy online and the counter ways to overcome. 

Identity Theft 

Identity theft is one of the recurring fears that people are not willing to buy with an online shop. People who have shopped once in their lifetime with a store, are often complaining that they are frequently receiving messages from the same kind of businesses. How did this all get possible? 

It is only possible when a store starts selling that valued data to other stores. Or the platforms that a person once have shopped with, is not secure in terms of its data. Now, the valuable information of that particular store’s customer is being stolen and used without any privileges. 

In Pakistan, the state institutions are not that technologically strong that they keep an eye on such issues. That’s why operating businesses don’t hesitate to breach such kind of data. But in the west world security breach is considered to be a severe kind of issue.

Authenticity of stores 

Apart from identity theft issues, there are several issues aligned with online buying. These trust issues can occur in the forms:

• The authenticity of a store 
• Third-party manipulations

These are the risks often from the buyers’ side regarding trust issues and they are genuine. How can a potential online buyer trust either a particular store is authentic or not? Apart from a few countries, the operating ecommerce businesses are not licensed from the regulatory bodies.

The same is the case in Pakistan and seasonal players happen to be robbing of the people’s money who buy online. The seasonal players who just want to sell out their stock, tend to make them present online and sell away their stock. They are an actual threat to the fear of online buyers.

Third-party manipulations are also a threat that has still been reduced to a minimum due to the upcoming technology. The barcodes and QR codes are a way to get rid of the third-party manipulations that are frequently being practiced in the growing ecommerce economies. 

Pay before delivery 

Pay before delivery is the basic concern when one gets aligned with a new store. Some online stores have a strict policy for payments at the time of placing orders. The customer’s mindset in the developed world is too mature in this regard. When it is about the developing world, it is too disgusting. Most of the online buyers are not even easy at paying before delivery. 

We map it on Pakistan’s ecommerce. Here, the payment before a delivery culture is too low because of the loopholes in the time between placing order and time of delivery. Sometimes, the stores are also fraudulent. The fraudulent businesses are too busy in snatching the trust of Pakistanis from online retails. They deliver otherwise what they show on their online selling platform.

How to overcome these fears?

Several stakeholders must play their part to help the ecommerce remove their hurdles. Here, you will find a few countermeasures that will eventually help the ecommerce growth in the developing economies. 

Policy-Making for Data/Information security

Effective policy against the data/breachers should be implemented at the state level. This is not only the way to overcome this issue only by citing the data/information breachers. The states must bring a license-system for those who are eligible to operate in a particular ecommerce domain. 

For issuing licenses, there should be viable security testing of their platforms. If a system has much vulnerability to be penetrated, it should not qualify for ecommerce operation. Once the licensed ecommerce starts evolving in a particular territory, people will start building trust in the ecommerce of a particular territory or international ecommerce. 

Store labeling system

The stores must be labeled with some central database which will certify them according to their level of ecommerce experiences. Along with this practice, the people must be able to find the status of a particular store which will let him/her know either it qualifies for ecommerce operations or not.

This centralization of legit stores will help the potential online buyers to evaluate the authenticity of a particular store. Eventually, this practice will help the ecommerce grow in a particular economy.

Trusted payment options 

A lot of evolving ecommerce economies are suffering just because of not having trusted and easy-to-use payment options. In this scenario, people just have fear of losing their very sensitive information in the hands of less secure payment methods.

PayPal does not operate in the countries where the ease of doing business index is too low. Once PayPal starts doing operations in such economies, it will attract the ecommerce investments. The more the innovation in the e-payments, the more the ecommerce will grow. 

Awareness Campaigns 

Being well-accommodated with the maximum available is an art to go. All these things are not going to settle very soon. So, the awareness campaigns must be run to help the people know how they should use digital payments for buying online. It must be part of the training attire that the people must get familiarity with ecommerce how it operates in a particular country

The ecommerce industry must make a contract with their courier partners that they must be obliged to, “check before delivery” options. This practice will ultimately help a brand grow trust in the public and such practices will indirectly be contributing to the ecommerce of a particular country. 

Final Thoughts 

Ecommerce is one of the emerging industries locally or internationally. To fix the user experience in a mannered way, it needs much maturity. A few thoughts have been shared for removing the fears at domestic or international levels by making the ecommerce operation more mature. Farosh.pk always strives to fix things according to its country’s online marketplace. We always try our best to help the ecommerce industry flourish in Pakistan.