science

Trusted Shops

Trusted Shops is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Trusted Shops rather than just read about it. In short: Trusted Shops is a company founded in Cologne, Germany, in 1999, which offers online shops and their customers trust-building services by means of a trustmark, a money-back guarantee process and a system of customer reviews. Online retailers are also provided with assistance in meeting legal requirements.

Trusted Shops — illustration

Key takeaways

Trusted Shops belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Trusted Shops to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Trusted Shops from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Trusted Shops is a company founded in Cologne, Germany, in 1999, which offers online shops and their customers trust-building services by means of a trustmark, a money-back guarantee process and a system of customer reviews. Online retailers are also provided with assistance in meeting legal requirements. Around 25,000 online shops display the trustmark as of July 2019.

Company history

Foundation The company was founded in Cologne (Germany) in 1999 as a joint venture between Gerling Speziale Kreditversicherungs AG and the business consultancy Impact Business & Technology Consulting GmbH. Jean-Marc Noël and Ulrich Hafenbradl were among the founders. The company began operations one year later. Its offer consisted of a trustmark for online shops, and from the very beginning the company also offered customers of online shops displaying the trustmark a money-back guarantee. By mid-November 2000, around 100 shops had obtained the trustmark.

Development

The number of online shops with a trustmark grew in the following years. While there were 9,000 in 2010, more than 30,000 trusted shops are currently registered (last update October 2021). In 2009, the company offered interested shops its web-based shopping review tool as a stand-alone version that is independent of the trustmark. Trusted Shops France SARL was founded in 2017 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Trusted Shops GmbH, and one year later the Polish subsidiary was founded. The Spanish subsidiary was founded in September 2019 and the Dutch subsidiary in October 2019.

Present

Services Online shops are entitled to use the Trusted Shops trustmark after passing an audit that includes aspects such as data security, consumer protection, customer service, price transparency and creditworthiness. The money-back guarantee adds financial security to the promise that online shops with trustmark are trustworthy providers. Companies can use web-based feedback systems to have their customers review purchases or transactions. This includes, for example, the service, the website, or the delivered product quality. The system ensures that only customers who have made purchases participate in the feedback procedure. The legal security aid is offered in cooperation with law firms and includes, among other things, the drafting of legal texts (such as the General Terms and Conditions), checking websites for compliance with e-commerce law, and representation in case of legal disputes in Germany and other European countries.

Personnel and locations The company’s headquarters is located in Cologne (Germany). Further locations are in France (Lille), in the Netherlands (Amsterdam), in Poland (Warsaw) and in Spain (Barcelona). According to its own statements, the company employs 500 people.

Owners According to the information based on the financial year 2017 provided by Bisnode, two Crédit Agricole funds (CA Innovation 10 and LCL Innovation 2009) jointly own 10% of the shares in Trusted Shops. Two private equity and infrastructure funds owned by French investor Omnes Capital (Capital Invest PME 2014 and Capital Invest PME 2015) jointly hold 4%. Sohano GmbH owns 23% and Entract GmbH owns 38%. 25% is held by Global Founders Capital GmbH & Co (belongs to Rocket Internet).

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Trusted Shops

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Trusted Shops claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Trusted Shops before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Trusted Shops ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Trusted Shops

In research: Trusted Shops appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Trusted Shops in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Trusted Shops is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1999 establishments in Germany, Certification marks, Companies based in Cologne, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Trusted Shops outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Trusted Shops in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Trusted Shops means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Trusted Shops out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Trusted Shops in simple terms?

Why does Trusted Shops matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Trusted Shops?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Trusted Shops.