If your fledgling ecommerce business sells to a local clientele — through sites like Facebook or Craigslist — you’ve no doubt worried about your safety when meeting a buyer.
Reports of crimes associated with these meet-up transactions should create a healthy skepticism of conducting business this way.
Now, a number of communities are taking steps to make selling products online a bit safer. They’re creating ecommerce safe zones.
Charlotte County in Florida is one of the latest to establish these ecommerce safe zones. They are established by local authorities to allow ecommerce sellers and buyers to safely meet.
The ecommerce safe zones are well lit and under constant video surveillance.
In Charlotte County, these ecommerce safe zones are under the supervision of sheriff’s deputies and a zone has been created at each of the deputies’ district offices. But these ecommerce safe zones have been popping up all over the country.
In this Florida community, these safe zones are simply parking spaces. In other areas, they’re in a lobby of a police station or in some areas where authorities are nearby, either physically or virtually.
Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Police Dept. also joined the trend and created some ecommerce safe zones, too. At the time of their creation, the department said, “It is the intent of the Los Angeles Police Department that the utilization of these zones by the community will reduce robberies, thefts, and violence that often occurs during these transactions.”
To find an ecommerce safe zone in your area, there is a website, SafeDeal.zone, that allows you to find a location closest to you.
Image: City of Arlington (Texas)