Australian e-tailers have put their heads together to discuss the establishment of an Industry Standard for the B2C e-commerce arena.
The standard, to be created by analyst firm GlobalReviews, would be used to provide online consumers with information on the performance of etailers in five key areas, including security and fulfilment.
"Participants saw the value in creating an industry standard to allay consumer's often unwarranted fears about security and fulfillment," GlobalReviews said.
"The major concern of e-tailers was ensuring our sample size was large enough."
GlobalReviews claims it would use "some 250 quantitive criteria" to analyse e-tailers.
The index would be reviewed on a quarterly basis and will also rely on online shoppers' personal experiences and opinions, according to GlobalReviews.
"We've already received several thousand pieces of feedback," GlobalReviews' founder Dr Adir Shiffman said, "and the results are interesting to say the least".
Senior executives from 12 online e-tailers, including Internet superstore eStore, Sydney-based online grocer ShopFast, online mobile phone company Mobile Shop and eVoucher, the online company that provides electronic gift vouchers, attended the talks in Sydney and Melbourne.
"Overall sentiment towards the GlobalReviews evaluation method was positive," the company said.
