Find out more about this subject in the following article.

Online shoppers use alternative payment methods

In 2008 the company trialpay found out in it’s Alternative Payments Survey, that 75% of online shoppers have used an alternative payment method, such as Google Checkout, PayPal, Bill Me Later and TrialPay to purchase an item online. And 59% of online shoppers say they are more likely to make a purchase online if there is an alternative payment method available.

More payment options – more trust?

40% of those surveyed by ClickandBuy also said that they would feel more comfortable purchasing from a retailer who offers a wide range of payment methods than a retailer who only offers one payment option.

One third (36%) of survey participants said they would be spending more online than on the high street in 2009 than in 2008 and 45% agreed that they would be spending more time shopping online for cheaper versions of things they used to buy on the high street.

Financial security risks associated with ecommerce continue to be a concern, however, with 83% of respondents believing that the number of people trying to commit fraud on the internet is increasing. Only one third disagreed with the statement ‘I feel no safer when buying online now than I did five years ago’ and less than half (42%) of regular online shoppers are totally confident that their credit card details are secure when entered online.

Concerns of security risks

Of the 32% of adults surveyed who do not regularly shop online, over half (54%) said that this is because they are concerned of the security risks from entering credit card details online.

Commenting on the findings, Nick Drew, director, e-commerce operations, ClickandBuy, said:

“The message to merchants is clear – consumers are prepared to shop more online, but they want to feel completely comfortable and secure in doing so. Competition is rife in the online space and if shoppers aren’t being offered the right service and payment systems to meet their needs, they will take their purchase elsewhere, leaving merchants to potentially miss out on millions of pounds of business. Yes, e-commerce is set to grow, but only for those merchants who appreciate that different consumers have different preferences when it comes to making online transactions. The logic is simple – by offering a wider range of payment systems, the more customers a site is likely to appeal to.”

What is Tailerstore.co.uk?
tailorstore.co.uk is the web shop of Tailor Store Sweden AB for our customers from the United Kingdom. The aim of this web shop is to provide a tailor made offer to customers from the UK.

Why did you decide to start an e-commerce business?
The big advantage of doing e-commerce is to be able to reach a huge amount of potential customers. A web shop makes it also easy for the customer to do shopping from a familiar environment like the living room and avoid all the stress that comes along with going shopping in stores like finding a parking space or fighting yourself through a crowd of people in the shopping mall. On the other hand we can offer our products cheaper as we do not have those high costs for rent and clerks. This assures a big competitive advantage.

When did your shop open?
Tailor Store started its online business in the 1st quarter of 2004 but at that time under the name “Tailor Shirts”.

How did you start setting up your online shop?
Our online shop is a self development. The current online shop is the 3rd version with a much better user interface, more choices and flexibility.

What are the advantages of your online shop against a high street store?
As mentioned earlier, our customers can get their highly individualized shirts from Tailor Store with some clicks from their couch at home. With Tailor Store it’s even fun to spend money online. Just look at the shirt designer interface which is very easy to use. We also try to design the order processing as transparent as possible. The customer can at any time go to our online shop, log in and check the order status to see if the order was approved by us after checking measurements or if the shirts were already produced. The biggest advantage will always be the price. To get a comparable product in a store the customer would have to spend at least double as much money.

Are you working full time?
Everybody employed at Tailor Store is working full time.

Which payment systems do you offer?
Tailor Store proposes credit card payments. When a customer pays by credit card his order is directly marked as paid. This decreases the lead time as we do not need to wait for the payment to arrive. Besides that, Tailor Store does not charge extra for credit card payments. Other payment alternatives for our UK customers are ClickandBuy and PayPal.

Where are your customers located?
Our main target group are people with knowledge about online shopping. We put our focus on males between 20 and 60 who need to wear shirts on the job. Other segments include males who like to wear shirts in their free time and females.

What did you do to increase the visibility of your shop?
We have taken several steps to optimize our online shop for search engines like Google. We are also investing in Google AdWords and try to put more emphasis on banner advertisement.

With the store’s Shirtdesigner you can customize and design your own shirts choosing from a big variety of colours, fabrics and cuts.

What have you done to increase consumer confidence?
We believe that giving the customer as much information as possible is crucial to build up confidence. Our online shop contains many pages with information about our products, our service and who we are. Last but not least we are convinced that a short response time on customer inquiries is a must.

What are your plans for the next months?
We are planning to extend our production capacities to be able to deliver our products even faster. Our main product the tailor made shirt will soon get optional embroidery and we will launch a new product: the tailor made piqué shirt.
For more information click here or go to the Trusted Shops Profile of Tailor Store.