Excite Site Offers Credit Card Guarantee
Excite Inc. said it’s the first major Web site to offer a guarantee against credit card fraud that’s designed to calm consumer concerns and boost the revenue it makes by promoting merchants and taking a cut of their online sales.
The No. 2 Internet directory will reimburse consumers if their credit cards are used fraudulently after they shopped at a merchant endorsed by Excite’s security certification program. Excite also revamped the shopping area on its site to better channel consumers to merchants who pay Excite a percentage of online sales or fees to promote their sites.
The moves are meant to boost Excite’s marketing and electronic commerce revenue by soothing consumer fears about buying online--concerns that have held back the acceptance of electronic commerce. Excite is betting that with the guarantee it can attract more consumers and more merchants for its marketing programs, an area where it competes with No. 1 Internet directory Yahoo Inc. and No. 3 Lycos Inc.
The guarantee “is a way for them to stand out,” said Nicole Vanderbilt, an analyst at market researcher Jupiter Communications.
Internet directories, which provide listings of Web sites as well as services including sports scores, financial quotes and e-mail, are taking advantage of their ability to direct consumers to merchants’ sites--for a fee.
The directories are trying to expand their revenue beyond advertising fees through electronic commerce and marketing promotions. Excite in June signed an agreement to promote Internet-based bookseller Amazon.com Inc. for a percentage of the sales Amazon made. Yahoo has also signed up big Web sites, including Amazon.
Calming consumer worries about theft on the Internet is part of the groundwork needed to boost electronic commerce, even at the risk of having to pay for the times when credit card information is used fraudulently, Excite said.
Web publishers argue that with the new security technology, using credit cards online is less risky than using a card in a restaurant, where the number can be copied and used by any number of people. So far, though, among high-profile Internet merchants and publishers, only deep-pocketed AT&T; Corp. has been willing to back online use of its credit card.
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‘We’re trying to back up the safety message,” said David Williams, Excite’s senior producer of e-commerce.
Excite said a negligible percentage of its revenue now comes from marketing or taking a percentage of online transactions. The company won’t charge for certifying merchants, which include Walt Disney Co.’s Disney Store.
