Holiday E-Commerce Surge Poses Major Fraud Risk
As e-commerce grows, so does the potential for fraud, according to new data from ACI Worldwide.
The digital payments firm is projecting a 27% increase in global e-commerce transactions over the holiday period October 2020 through December 2020. The data, based on hundreds of millions of e-commerce transactions from global merchants, also projects a 40% increase in the buy-online-pick-up-in-store (BOPIS) or click-and-collect channel.
Global e-commerce transactions increased by 21% in September 2020 compared with September 2019, according to ACI’s data.
Buy online, pickup in store services could pose particular fraud risks in the coming weeks.
“As consumers spend more time at home, we expect BOPIS to be the primary delivery channel that consumers use to do their holiday shopping this year,” said Debbie Guerra, EVP at Naples, Florida-based ACI Worldwide. “We expect the BOPIS delivery channel to grow for both genuine and fraudulent consumers as merchants both large and small continue to add this as a new option due to the pandemic.”
ACI also found that:
- Sectors that continue to experience major increases in purchases in September include gaming (71% increase) and retail (45% increase).
- Sectors that continue to experience major decreases in purchases in September include travel (21% decrease) and ticketing (75% decrease).
- The average ticket price of genuine purchases dropped by $26 in 2020 compared with 2019.
- The transactional value of fraud attempts increased 0.4% in September, driven by purchases of electronics, with buy-online-pickup-in-store being the channel of choice for fraudsters.
