Consumers Love Affair with online retail could be undermined by fraud

The Barclays Consumer Spending index out today highlights a contraction in consumer spending, with growth hindered by declines in petrol and supermarket expenditure. This comes after what was a record quarter for the online retailing sector, signposting changing consumer habits and the rise of ecommerce, with customers valuing the convenience of transacting on digital devices at the click of a button.

As consumers continue to value the ease of online shopping, ecommerce fraud is growing at twice the rate of sales[1]. 2019 has already seen ecommerce fraud amounting to £393 million, which made up 59 per cent of total card fraud cases[2], with nascent ecommerce merchants being cited as primary targets for this fraud.

However, by investing in fraud detection and prevention solutions that verify a user’s identity and cross-references it against fraud data at the customer on boarding stage, merchants can curb significant losses from fraud, according to Zac Cohen, General Manager at Trulioo.

Zac comments:  “Rising ecommerce fraud suggests that assessing fraud risk at the point of sale is a dangerous approach, with fraudulent losses an avoidable outcome.  Every ecommerce transaction lifecycle has an identifiable data trail. Effectively exploiting data points can empower online retailers to combat fraud when verifying identities at the customer on boarding stage, while simultaneously permitting legitimate customers to carry out transactions unencumbered. In one stroke, data can be referenced, verified and used to prevent fraudulent transactions – offering online retailers peace of mind, as well as saving them money and resources.”

“Technological advancement will continue to fuel the explosion in popularity of the digital economy, prompting many retailers to expand to foreign markets with high mobile phone adoption rates and where mobile data can be leveraged for identity verification.”

“Fraudsters love easy money, and will continually target emerging online retailers who are somewhat naïvely focusing on speed, rather than security. Like a double-edged sword, ecommerce can be both rewarding and unforgiving – an agile and data-centric approach to combat fraud is the key requirement at this given time.”