Kentucky Colonel Harlan Sanders was on to something when he decided to plaster his smiling, grandfatherly face on buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

He built trust with his smiling mug and consumers associated his honest face with KFC. New research has revealed a photo of a business owner's face goes a long way in convincing skeptical customers to shop online at his store.

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According to marketing experts that were part of the study, "Feeling Close From Afar: The Role of Psychological Distance in Offsetting Distrust in Unfamiliar Online Retailers," including a photo of a business owner or his store on a shopping website can encourage wary buyers to buy from a site they're unfamiliar with.

Past surveys have shown that Internet users are very, very concerned about online scams and fraud related to online shopping, much more than they were a few years ago. Purely virtual vendors without a brick-and-mortar store or those with a geographically distant retail location, are at the greatest disadvantage in selling their wares online, partly from the "psychological distance" felt by customers.

The authors' studies presented hypothetical online shopping situations to undergraduate business students and then questioned them on attitudes.

In one study, participants were assigned to view a mock website to buy a pair of diamond earrings from a fictitious vendor. Some students were shown a site that included a stock photo image of a middle-aged man in a business suit working at a computer with his name and position ("owner") shown in a caption./

Other sites included an image of an ordinary office building. And others displayed no image of the business owner or the building. The student shoppers were also told the vendor was either local or 1,500 miles away.

In most cases, participants preferred to buy the earrings from sites that showed a person or a building.

The implication is that any suggestion of physical or social reality associated with the online retailer boosted new customers' confidence in that business.

Based on their results, the authors recommend specific strategies for online retailers that lack the resources to create a well-known brand or build enough physical stores to have at least a regional presence .

These include better informing web customers a physical store exists. It's also good to show images and familiarize customers with the owner's name and picture.

The study said these strategies are cost-effective ways small retailers can use to circumvent the constraints of distance and anonymity and encourage consumers to purchase online.

The research was conducted by Professors Peter Darke of York University; Michael Brady of Florida State University and Andrew E Wilson of Saint Mary's College of California and consultant Ray Benedicktus of Lieberman Research Worldwide.

TagsColonel Harlan Sanders, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Feeling Close From Afar: The Role of Psychological Distance in Offsetting Distrust in Unfamiliar Online Retailers