Trust seems to be the main issue for large purchases, but individual retailers cannot (and probably should not) know enough about a customer to trust them. Cou

Trust seems to be the main issue for large purchases, but individual retailers cannot (and probably should not) know enough about a customer to trust them. Could the retail organization use a physically distributed escrow service to somehow tie payment to physical goods delivery? That essentially outsources the "brick and mortar" aspect to a third party and removes delivery risk. Amazon and Currency Exchange, for example, can have a much healthier economic relationship than Amazon and me. Alternatively, this sounds like it could be addressed as a sort of "consumer protection" insurance similar to my homeowners or auto insurance. I file a claim so insurance covers legitimate large losses. Risk is pooled and the underwriter is the organization that is evaluating my trustworthiness, not the individual retailers. Just ideas off the cuff, maybe there are huge holes here.