When growing up some friends our family (this was a small town) ran a
> local grocery. A major hassle with delivery was mistakes (both ways)
> complaints of things missing that weren't, complaints about produce
> selection, etc ... Some real, some bogus. One advantage the local store
> had was that a bad check was from someone in the area and was usually
> a mistake that was quickly corrected, but in any case was usually
> handled locally. With the Internet, you open up all kinds of scam
> possibilities from folks on the other side of the planet. And the
> rules for CC cards is if there's a complaint the merchant agrees to
> allow the money to be withdrawn from their account until the issue is
> resolved. All in all the profits to a grocer are based on getting you
> into the store and you buying things you didn't plan.
> [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But although on the interest you can do
> business from all over the world, an internet grocey service is mostly
> going to be local; a merchant who was asked to deliver groceries from
> his local store to some addresss in Nigeria or wherever would look at
> the order rather askance. He is going to deliver to somewhere within
> a few miles of his store, so he in effect has the same protection as
> he does with someone local coming in and writing him a bad check. And > ... PAT]
To be clear. I wasn't referring to being asked to deliver groceries in Nigeria. But an internet enabled store has to deal with fraud, data theft, etc ... which can come from the other side of the planet. Where the old local grocery really was a local operation. Fraud occurred with people in the store or at a delivery location. There was no website to break into and take over.
Now anyone taking Visa/MC has to deal with more of this but a small store will likely use a service and the onus is on the service, not the small store. Plus processing Visa/MC payments is a LOT easier than running a web enabled storefront.