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Discussion of web assurance seals: how and why they influence consumers'' decisions.

Article Excerpt
I. INTRODUCTION

As indicated by Odom et al. (2002) (hereafter, the paper), the potential growth in electronic commerce may be hampered by consumer fears and concerns about purchasing online. The use of web assurance seals may ease such fears and concerns thereby fostering online purchasing. Accordingly, research related to web assurance is interesting and relevant for both practice and academia.

The paper presents the results of three studies that explore consumer fears and concerns about purchasing online and their perceptions of web assurance seals. These comments will begin with a potential answer to the "bottom line" recurring question: What do we learn from the paper? Then, three central issues will be presented where further development and work would be most useful. The discussion will conclude with several presentation issues.

II. WHAT DO WE LEARN FROM THE PAPER?

First, we learn that consumers have recognizable concerns about purchasing on the web. Study 1 finds seven distinct concerns developed from open-ended questions. The concerns correspond with and support other research and, though not surprising, provide support for the close-ended list used in Study 2.

Second, we learn that consumers neither recognize nor are familiar with web assurance. In Study 2 only 3-17 percent of the subjects report having seen the seals on a web site. Further, subjects' average familiarity with web assurance seals range from 1.04-2.3 (on a five-point scale) for the different seals, consistent with low levels of recognition. Given that web assurance is new and still developing, these results are also not surprising.

Finally, we learn that in spite of the fact that a majority of subjects neither recognized nor were familiar with web assurance seals, they were still willing to make brand associations related to purchasing concerns. How did they choose? Was it a random guess or...

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