Online shopping gets safer

By JO THORNHILL
Updated:

 

A staggering 17 million people are now online in the UK - but over two-thirds of that number still don't buy things on the net, according to research by MORI.

In an attempt to combat consumers' fears over giving out credit card and other personal details online, the e-solutions group of Securicor has launched Safedoor.co.uk, which it says will revolutionise the way people shop on the web.

Shoppers register their credit card and other details just once with SafeDoor - either online or over the phone. They can then make purchases securely from the internet through SafeDoor's registered retailer websites - and they don't have to disclose their credit card number to any other site. SafeDoor also promises not send any shoppers details on to other websites. The other added bonus is that SafeDoor is free.

SafeDoor places all orders on the customer's behalf, thus shielding the customer's details from retailers. Orders are then protected by special digital certificate technology. All SafeDoor's data is protected by secure electronic barriers, not even SafeDoor call centre staff have access to customers' credit card numbers.

However, though SafeDoor is free and can stop your inbox being overloaded with junk mail, so far it's shopping selection is quite small. The site says it hopes to have 40 retailers signed up by the end of March.

Among the products on offer are sportswear, toiletries, videos, CDs, books, electrical goods, home and garden, pet products and computer software.

Stephen Taylor, chief executive of SafeDoor says: 'We conducted extensive consumer research before formulating SafeDoor and through this discovered an astonishing number of people are nervous of shopping online. SafeDoor has been specifically designed to take away that fear factor and make online shopping safer.'

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