BuySafe extended its ecommerce bonding service beyond eBay to merchants' own websites in June. The company will now offer merchants the option of letting buyers choose whether to use the bonding service on transactions, in which case the buyer pays the BuySafe fee instead of the merchant.

BuySafe's Bonded Shopping program qualifies eBay, Overstock.com, and Tias.com merchants, identifies members with a BuySafe Seal, and uses surety bonds to provide broad protection for individual buyers from online transaction risks. In June it opened the program to websites operated by merchants who use certain service providers such as Zoovy.

The BuySafe Website Bonding program allows merchants to offer BuySafe on their own websites and choose between paying a one-percent commission on all bonded sales (the Bonded Merchant program), or allowing the buyer to choose whether or not to guarantee their transaction with a bond (the Certified Merchant program). In the latter case, buyers pay a fee of between 2 - 6 percent of the purchase price, and BuySafe provides a revenue bonus back to the merchants of 15-25%. The buyer fees vary because they are optimized according to product attributes and bonding history. There are about 150 online stores currently using the BuySafe Website Bonding program including TikiMaster.com (http://www.tikimaster.com) and 877MyJuicer.com (http://www.877myjuicer.com).

BuySafe also offers a "Trust API" to search-engine and software developers to enable them to integrate the BuySafe seal into their offerings. One example of an application using the Trust API is a toolbar that displays the BuySafe Seal next to bonded merchants in toolbar search results. The Trust API will be available through a new developers program expected to be officially announced by the company later this week.

BuySafe founder and Chairman Steve Woda said the BuySafe seal boosts conversion rates on eBay by 6.8 percent. The BuySafe Website Bonding program can do the same for merchants on their own websites, he said, and with the Certified Merchant program, BuySafe will also pay merchants for bonded sales.

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