Show Your Clients You Care About Product Safety

You know your clients are shopping online. They’re checking pricing and products and looking for deals, and there really isn’t much you can do about it — other than helping them stay as safe as you can while they’re not talking to you. Safe enough that they might just end up buying from you in the end anyway because you’ve shown them that you’ve got their respective backs when it comes to safety.

Online marketplaces offer choice, value, and convenience, but what they don’t offer is confidence that their purchases are both safe and responsibly sourced. If a little advice from you can help a client, even if it’s for a consumer purchase for their family or personal use, you end up with credibility that could easily result in more sales.

While a current case is working its way through the courts, an initial ruling dictates that Amazon’s third-party marketplace must adhere to the same distributor safety and liability standards that you do. That’s a good thing, too. In a recent test of products bought from not only Amazon Marketplace, but also eBay, AliExpress, and Wish, a whopping 66 percent failed safety tests.

So, how do you start the conversation to help your clients stay safe? I suggest three tips right off the bat:

First, there’s an old saying that a deal too good to be true probably is, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing to remind your clients of that. We can all get sucked into what seems like a good deal. Many of the dangerous items that failed safety tests were likely purchased because they were a cheaper alternative. It’s worth it to spend a little more for peace of mind.

Next, it’s best to stick to known brands. Unknown brands or unknown products are simply asking for trouble. There are countless examples of product failures in things like USB travel chargers, power banks, and power adaptors. Make sure your client knows the difference between the words “Genuine Samsung Charger” and “Samsung Compatible Charger.” The online marketplaces are filled with cheap options that are just a siren’s song boosted by hundreds or even thousands of positive reviews, but many are brands your clients might not recognize. Does the product have an unusually high percentage of 5-star reviews? What your clients might not realize is that a high number of top-rated reviews is highly suspect — it’s highly unlikely that so many people not only found a product to be “perfect,” but who also made time to write a review. These days, that’s pretty rare. Educating your clients about reviews, and the proliferation of fake reviews is something they might find incredibly helpful.  And also remind them to not forget to check the negative reviews — they are less prone to be fake and a good  way to see if buyers had problems or concerns.

Make sure that your clients are aware of safety standards for specific category of product categories — especially if they’re interested in products that might appeal to children and/or health and beauty products. We’ve covered this issue in this column many times, but it bears repeating that the reality is that the risk of product safety for purchases of items in some categories — especially these two — are just not worth the potential savings. A good deal that potentially opens your clients up to risk is never a deal worth taking. And sometimes clients need to be reminded of this.

If the conversation has gotten this far, your clients might be interested in more. Here are some other reminders you can offer to help keep them safe when buying online:

• Always place orders from a secure connection. If their computer isn’t protected from potentially malicious software, their financial information and passwords are at risk of being stolen. This concept is so basic, yet only a fraction of the U.S. population adequately protects their computers.

• Prospective buyers should provide no more info than absolutely necessary. Of course, you need to provide some method of payment, shipping address, telephone number, and email address, but if the merchant asks for other information, advise your clients to think about walking away. Buyers should never be asked for and should never offer bank account information, social security information, or driver’s license number. When that does happen, it should be an immediate danger signal.

Finally, how about something you should think about concerning your own info, too. Those companies that ask questions about your interests? You need to remember these answers should always be optional, and you should be cautious about providing the information, too. Does the merchant resell, rent, or share information? That’s a major pet peeve for me. So much so that I have set up email addresses I never check to give these companies. Check the site’s privacy policy to understand how exposed your information may become. Many stores clearly state that they do not share, sell, or rent consumer information, which is great, but others say they own your info and can use it (or abuse it) however they choose. I now make it a habit to stick to the companies that respect consumer privacy, and you might want to think about that for yourself as well.