Striking the balance: Enhancing eCommerce fraud risk management

Implementing effective fraud risk management is typically perceived as a driver for cost rather than as a potential catalyst for revenue growth and profit. This mindset is understandable in the context of fraud prevention approaches that focus solely on direct fraud losses and chargeback prevention KPIs, but taking a broader view, encompassing sales conversation rates and revenue generation, opens the door to optimisation strategies that can turn a cost centre into a profit driver.

PwC has collaborated with Forter to explore how effective fraud prevention strategies can be deployed not only to mitigate financial losses from fraud, but also to identify currently hidden revenue opportunities.

Wardrobing

Purchase items, wear them, and then return the items back to the store for a refund.

53%

of merchants have reported issues with renting and wardrobing

Free shipping abuse

Consumers return a high percentage of their orders back to the merchant for a variety of reasons.

30%

of users buy items with the intention of returning them, just to qualify for free shipping.

New account opening abuse

The creation of multiple accounts to exploit promotional offers.

18%

of UK consumers admitting to opening multiple accounts to take advantage of promotions.

Key messages

eCommerce fraud is a dynamic and rapidly evolving threat - Over recent years the complexity and sophistication of eCommerce fraud threats has increased significantly. Merchants need to understand the breadth of fraud risks they face and implement strategies that are able to respond quickly, and proportionately, to changing threats.

Effective fraud risk management requires a balancing act - To deliver effective fraud risk management merchants must balance providing a good customer experience, preventing fraud, minimising operational costs of fraud prevention and driving high sales conversations.

Optimising fraud risk management can deliver competitive advantage - Optimised fraud risk management approaches should enable online merchants to accurately identify and filter out fraudulent transactions while providing good customers with a low-friction journey that helps to drive revenue growth.