As Black Friday and Cyber Monday near and the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear, consumers still appear to have the jitters when shopping online through unfamiliar, lesser-known merchants.

Recent surveys suggest that 33% of respondents have abandoned an online transaction with an unfamiliar merchant due to concerns over getting something different than what was purchased and 29% ended the transaction because of non-delivery concerns. These concerns are commonly being referred to as merchant non-performance risk, and they rank close to concerns with identity theft (37%) and credit card fraud (40%). So how does the smaller, less-known online retailer allay these fears and compete with the Amazon's of the online world?

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