-E-tailers are now having to keep up with the banks and airlines in terms of their online offerings," Shiffman said. -There is no doubt there has been a dramatic improvement in etailing, especially in terms of customer service levels offered across the board, as well as an improvement in the overall ease of use of the different sites."
After trawling through numerous Web sites, and evaluating them according to a complex process based on over 400 criteria, Global Reviews has rated 60 - 70 e-tailers in terms of the services the provide to consumers. While the ratings are provided free to the public via the company Web site, Shiffman has taken the extra step of creating Christmas Certifications, based on stringent service standards in the run up to the silly season.
-Rather than testing the sites on all the criteria we are focussing on ten very specific aspects consumers are looking for," Shiffman said. -Areas such as delivery, customer service, billing, site usability, and security."
In an attempt to reassure their public major etailers such as Greengrocer, Mobile Stop, EzyDVD, Spotlight, and leading bookseller Dymocks have already taken up the certification offer. As the certification is offered at a minimal fee, Shiffman expects the numbers of Christmas Certified etailers to grow to roughly 20 by Christmas time.
-We are certainly not seeing the madness that was apparent even 12 months ago," Shiffman said. -Generally those sites that are doing well online are those that provide the public with a reasonable offering, and the certification will take the guess work out of that process for many people."
