{"id":3309,"date":"2022-11-13T21:32:59","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T03:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atiba.com\/?p=3309"},"modified":"2023-01-30T14:34:49","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T20:34:49","slug":"why-do-we-make-a-transaction-its-all-about-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/why-do-we-make-a-transaction-its-all-about-trust\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do we make a transaction? It’s all about trust"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

When I saw the sign, I was confused,<\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome to Ray\u2019s Liquor Store\u201d was flickering in red neon lights above the door.\u00a0 This didn\u2019t seem right.<\/p>\n

I remembered feeling this same sense of confusion years ago on a trip to Chicago when a friend told me about this new \u201cUber thing\u201d that I could use to get from my hotel to the airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really cool,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cYou just tell the app where you are and where you want to go, and a random stranger will pull up and tell you to get in his car.\u201d \u00a0It was the early days of the \u201csharing economy\u201d when the concept of ride-sharing apps and Airbnb were just getting off the ground and stranger-danger was embedded in our collective consciousness.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo way,\u201d I thought.\u00a0 I decided to just call a cab.<\/p>\n

Yet here I was, hundreds of Uber rides later, about to drop off my luggage at random old liquor store in California. The guy behind the corner seemed nice, but surely, I was at the wrong place.<\/p>\n

I was in San Diego and needed a place to store my suitcase and laptop bag for a few hours between meetings.\u00a0 I had come across an app called Bounce that partners with local businesses that will store your luggage for a few hours for a small fee.<\/p>\n

The process is easy.\u00a0 You simply search for a location, show up with the bags you need to store, drop them off, and be on your way.\u00a0 \u201cWhy not?\u201d I figured.\u00a0 If I am OK with getting into a car with a total stranger, I should be fine leaving my suitcase at a retail store.<\/p>\n

But as I stared at the sign, I began to get cold feet.<\/p>\n

I had expected the app to lead to some form for a public locker or maybe a Target that had a secure storage area.\u00a0 Ray\u2019s Liquor had neither. For $10, they\u2019d keep my suitcase behind the counter with the rum and vodka until I returned to pick it up.<\/p>\n

Trust, or the lack thereof, is central to every transaction. It\u2019s what our entire economy is based on. \u00a0Whether it\u2019s buying a sandwich or dropping off your luggage at a corner store, if a buyer and seller don\u2019t trust each other, the transaction is dead.<\/p>\n

The growth of the sharing economy, where we buy and sell goods and services in a non-traditional way, has been remarkable because in a relatively short period of time, companies like Lyft, Uber, and Airbnb have been able to convince us to trust each other in a new way.<\/p>\n

How have they done this? \u00a0How in the world could I possibly trust a small liquor store with my luggage?<\/p>\n

It started with marketing and branding.\u00a0 The fact that I found the Bounce luggage storage app on the first page of Google made me feel that it was legit.\u00a0 And the branding on their website looked clean and professional.<\/p>\n

From there, the technology took over.<\/p>\n

GPS made it easy to find the closest storage location, and even though it led me to a place I wasn\u2019t expecting, just like Uber and Lyft it was accurate.\u00a0 And once I walked in the door the app allowed me to pay with PayPal (a service that I already trusted.)<\/p>\n

And finally, the service was low cost, making it tempting even though it was new.<\/p>\n

So, in the end, while my trust level wasn\u2019t 100%, it was enough to prompt me to hand my bag over the counter and hope for the best.<\/p>\n

A few hours later, when I returned, I was greeted by Ray himself. He happily handed me my luggage and offered me a discount on a bottle of wine.\u00a0 I thanked him and suggested he change the name of his store to Ray\u2019s Liquor and Luggage Storage.\u00a0 He laughed as I left to call an Uber.<\/p>\n

JJ Rosen is the founder of <\/em>Atiba<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 A<\/em>\u00a0Nashville IT support\u00a0<\/em><\/a>and<\/em>\u00a0custom software development company<\/em><\/a>. <\/em>Visit\u00a0<\/em>www.atiba.com\u00a0<\/em><\/a>or\u00a0<\/em>www.atibanetworkservices.com\u00a0<\/em><\/a>for more info.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article originally appeared in\u00a0The Tennessean. When I saw the sign, I was confused, \u201cWelcome to Ray\u2019s Liquor Store\u201d was flickering in red neon lights above the door.\u00a0 This didn\u2019t seem right. I remembered feeling this same sense of confusion years ago on a trip to Chicago when a friend told me about this new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atiba-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.atiba.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}