I'm sure you're correct in asserting that there is a viable internet product in Digital Me, but I'm not convinced that the consumer market is a viable place for it. It's the merchants who need Digital Me, not the consumer. From credit card fraud company, Verza, Inc. "Internet merchants are increasingly faced with larger number of charge-back requests and actual charge-backs from customers that claim they did not use their own credit card to make online purchases. The Internet merchant, with access to a limited number of verification resources, usually can not prove that the customer did in fact purchase a product or service. Currently only AVS (address verification service) is available, and most AVS checks are incomplete and unreliable. **The merchant subsequently faces penalties and the risk of losing a merchant account due to high charge-backs**".
Let's take Eddie Bauer. EB could maintain that it will only sell credit card charged goods to customers who have subscribed to Digital Me. EB would have to underwrite part of the costs to stay competitive, because unless this becomes an industry standard (and there's the golden ring), Land's End will become the cheaper alternative. So, how to achieve the industry standard level? Much retail know-how and hefty marketing budget on the part of NOVL to sell the merchants. Given NOVL's core business and its inexperience in this field, I think Digital Me is probably somewhat low on their must-sell list of products.
I appreciate your eagerness to see NOVL veer off into this field of business, but it's a risky proposition, and one that may not translate into increased earnings in the near term. My hunch is that it's a nice product but they don't know what the heck to do with it, except to peddle it to a credit card company, who will in turn sell it to its merchants in the form of higher percentage fees. Then, it's the credit card company, with the big marketing budget and lots of know-how, who will "sell" it to the secondary market (the consumers ) using FUD:
"FIGHT CREDIT CARD FRAUD! LOOK FOR THE DIGITAL-ME MERCHANT LOGO"
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