It was laughed at by consumers. There was a time not long ago when buying anything from internet was considered taboo because, you said it, fear of losing your credit card information to scammers.
That's a distinctly American problem. As is the (over)use of credit cards in general.
Here in Europe, the main worry was simply paying in advance and not getting the item. Early on, the popular choice was just paying to the postman on delivery - it moved some of the risk on to the seller, but it was balanced out by the seller making this option ~50% more expensive. It took some time for people to get used to dispute processes in marketplaces, and then for the laws to be updated with additional safeguards (e.g. 14 days no-questions-asked return policy for online purchases, which I think is an EU directive), and at some point, transferring money in advance of delivery became a normal practice. That was even before payment gateways, or even smartphones, became ubiquitous.
Distance selling regulations helped with it a lot. I can buy a product online and if I'm not happy with it, for any reason, I can send it back for a refund. This just isn't the case with shopping in a store.
I learned this the hard way twice buying in store from Argos in the UK, only to get home and find I had bought a used product which someone else had returned already. Argos refused to refund or replace the items because they are used.
I looked this up at the time and it seemed to be a common occurrence, I can only assume people returned items they bought online and Argos just put them back on the shelves.
Had I bought it online and had it delivered to my house I could have returned it. I buy online wherever possible now.
Interestingly "click-and-collect" services are not covered by distance selling regulations which is how I got burned twice by Argos.
This is why I still buy clothes, shoes and sport gears at stores. Returning products takes time and you still don't have what you wanted to buy.
If I buy a new item of the very same model I bought before, that's OK to buy online. Unfortunately companies keep changing models every year.
Also at this point they don't give a damn about quality controls. E.g. there was a time when you could order shoes online rather reliably. Today? What you get in the mail is barely correlated with the size you specified on the order.
From the last 10 days: we order two pairs for our kids, size X and Y - which we selected by actually following measurement instructions of the shoe company. When the order comes, it it turns out size X is too big for the younger kid, size Y is too small for the older. We return those, and order again, this time sizes (X-1) and (Y+1). What we got is... the (X-1) shoes were identical to X shoes (therefore still too large); the (Y+1) shoes were like Y+3 - way overshooting the target.
This was same models, same company, with no logistical confusion according to labels. Just one of multiple similar events we had (and many more I heard about from others) where the size of shoes received was pretty much random. So this is one category of goods that we're going back to buying in person.
And yes, that means dragging a 1.5 y.o. and a 4 y.o. into a shoe store in a large mall - the very one I mentioned above. Yes, our kids will likely get overwhelmed by lights and wares and ads, and start making all kinds of scenes. I don't care. If the store doesn't want a scene, they should not be routinely fucking up their order sizes.
I have never experienced this buying shoes from both big and small brands. Adidas, Nike, Allbirds, Converse, John Elliott, Beckett Simonon, etc. Maybe kids shoes are a different ballgame?
Also never experienced this with clothes. I buy everything online and it always fits as I would expect from the measurements listed on the website.
I do find shoes sometimes have inconsistent sizing between brands, but they usually say something like "runs 1/2 size small". Worst comes to worst I can compare size charts with a pair that I already own.
It's never a crapshoot where I can't rely on their sizing at all.