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About Us Online shopping has never been so popular as it is now and is continuing to grow at an incredible rate. But how does a consumer know who they can and can't trust? Back at the beginning of 2003, the Which? Webtrader scheme allowed customers to see at a glance whether or not a store was trustworthy. If the Which? Webtrader logo was displayed on a website, it meant that the website had been inspected by the consumer organisation and that it complied with all of their guidelines for safer shopping. At the end of January 2003, after three and a half years of running the scheme, Which? Webtrader closed down. As they didn't charge for their services, they simply couldn't afford to keep up with the cost of running such a scheme, especially as the number of online stores was increasing daily. At that time, we were running an e-commerce store of our own. We looked into the possibility of continuing the excellent work that Which? had done and contacted all of the Which? Webtraders to see what they thought. The response was phenomenal, however several other companies had the same idea and the marketplace became very confusing indeed. The main problem was that we wanted to stick to the strict guidelines that Which? had used, yet other companies were basically saying "pay us x amount and we'll give you a logo to display on your site". We just couldn't see the point in running a scheme where no real checks were made on the retailers sites and so we put our plans on hold, continued with our work and waited to see what happened .... Two and a half years down the line (July 2005), we felt that the time was right to launch SaferShopping.org - a scheme that reassures online shoppers that the site they are using meets strict standards and adheres to our code of practice, a scheme that doesn't discriminate against smaller businesses who can't afford expensive memberships yet offer still a great service to their customers, a scheme that will make online shopping in the UK safer than ever before ... |
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