Building Trust Three B’s at a Time

I recently conducted an email interview with Mike Eldridge, owner of Safety Glasses USA about his company’s membership in the Better Business Bureau®.

Tell me about your business and when you started online and with Yahoo!?

SafetyGlassesUSA.com specializes in selling safety glasses and protective eyewear for all kinds of applications. We started this business with a Yahoo! Store in October of 2000.

Why do you feel being part of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) is important for your business?

We feel that it’s important to show our customers that we are a member of the BBB. It’s a way of showing that we care about our customers and how they are treated before and after a sale. The BBB is a regulating entity with ethical and conscientious standards for business to follow.

Do more people buy when they see info about the BBB?

I think that displaying the BBB membership icon helps convert new customers to some degree, because it adds a level of trust and comfort in the knowledge that they are doing business with a reputable company. The BBB has been around much longer than other so called “safe shopping” certifications and many people have heard of the BBB, even if they don’t know everything that it does.

Where have you incorporated the information about the BBB in your site?

We currently display the BBB Reliability Membership icon on our homepage. This icon can be clicked on to confirm our membership with the BBB. We have future plans to include it on our shopping cart page.

Has there been any downside to dealing with the BBB? What is their role in dispute resolution if any?

To date we have had no negative impact from being a member of the BBB. The BBB will take complaints from customers and issue a formal complaint to the offending business. This formal complaint must be resolved within a certain time frame or membership with the BBB can be revoked along with a negative public posting. We are proud to say that we have never been the subject of a complaint.

New merchants may not wish to take on the extra cost of membership in the BBB OnLine programs, but you should carefully weigh the costs of membership and dispute resolution against potentially increased conversion rates by aligning your site with a trusted entity. Merchants can also incorporate the “ecommerce by Yahoo!” badge to help build trust.

Safety Glasses USA (http://www.safetyglassesusa.com) is located in Three Rivers, Michigan and was recently awarded the 2007 “Integrity Award” for a small business by the Better Business Bureau of Western Michigan.

To learn more about the BBB OnLine® programs for merchants, consult the BBB OnLine website.

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business