Consumer Reports to Rate E-Merchants

Seeking to broaden its online reach, Consumer Reports will announce today a new Web site designed to evaluate e-commerce merchants.

The site, called e-Ratings, will be included as a link on the 63-year-old magazine’s home page at https://www.consumerreports.org. The company hopes to carry its reputation as an unbiased reviewer of all sorts of products over to the new site.

E-Ratings will rank e-commerce sites according to their explanation of privacy, customer service and return policies; usability of the site; and breadth and depth of product choices and product information.

While there are several companies that provide reviews of e-commerce sites, most leave out major players, accept a fee from the sites they review or share results with Internet merchants.

Consumer Reports will choose sites based on the amount of traffic on the sites. The site will launch with evaluations of 30 catalog sites. Ratings of sites selling books and music will be posted Nov. 8 and toys Nov. 15.

Online merchants who sell electronics and small appliances will be reviewed in future postings.