Ipswich-based eMarket provider TimberWeb has launched an accreditation scheme which confirms that businesses are bona fide and have adopted good internet practices.

TimberWeb chairman and CEO Keith Richmond said that trust on the internet was one of the largest impediments to trading online – even in the forest products industry where many businesses knew each other.

And, he added, inefficient communications and poor visibility on the internet led to mistrust and businesses that keep a low profile compounded the problem. With identity theft and spoof e-mails common, it was important that companies knww who they were dealing with before they started talking.

Describing the new service, Mr Richmond said: “The accreditation not only allows businesses who do not know each other to communicate and trade in a very fragmented market like the global forest products industry, but it also lets businesses who do know each other in the traditional world feel confident that dealing online should work.

&#8220The accreditation not only allows businesses who do not know each other to communicate and trade in a very fragmented market like the global forest products industry, but it also lets businesses who do know each other in the traditional world feel confident that dealing online should work”

Keith Richmond, TimberWeb

“A large organisation that doesn’t have proper e-mail links from their site but relies on forms being relayed from a service provider will not qualify for our trust status and neither will companies that have no proper website domain or no website at all.

“The criteria goes much further than that of course, but a website, proper domains and direct e-mail consistent with the domain are essential starting points.”

Mr Richmond warns that the new accreditation is not about payment or credit status and neither is it a code of conduct. “Businesses need to undertake normal practices for credit assessment if they decide to trade in the end,” he said.