Building Trust with Customers: The Role of Fraud Prevention in E-commerce

For customers to be willing to shop at your store, they need to trust you. But trust isn’t earned easily in the e-commerce market. Especially with the prevalence of online scams and fraud.

Even with them knowing that merchants usually bear 60% of fraud losses, customers still wouldn’t proceed with the purchase if not confident in your store’s security measures.

So, what’s there left for you to do?

Easy—make security a priority for a change. Don’t just try to convince customers your store is safe to shop at without having given it that much thought. Show them by implementing some of the fraud prevention techniques we’ll discuss in this article.

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Why trust matters in e-commerce

Potential customers might be attracted to your store for many different reasons—easy-to-use interface, low prices, quality, etc. That said, you can have the most effective marketing strategy and still struggle to make sales if customers don’t feel secure browsing your online store.

When you think about it, this makes total sense. After all, online shopping requires customers to share sensitive information, such as their credit card details, which can potentially harm them financially if something were to go wrong. And by “something” we mean fraudulent activities.

Trusting you means they trust you to:

  • Protect their personal and financial data;
  • Deliver a quality product on time;
  • Offer fair prices without hidden fees;

Building trust with customers goes a long way. As Damien Vernet said not too long ago:

“The goal isn’t to sell a bag, it’s to build a relationship of confidence and trust with the customer.”

Among the many factors that contribute to this trust, fraud prevention is one of the most likely to yield fruit. In some way, it’s assuring your customers they have nothing to worry about.

The role of fraud prevention

You might hear a lot about protecting your business against fraud, leading to it sounding like a cliché. But you know what? Clichés are actually are true but often talked about.

Fraud prevention plays a huge role in getting your customers to trust you but also in positioning you as a reputable e-commerce business in the industry. Not only does it prevent fraud but it also shows your customers that you’re willing to go above and beyond to keep their details safe.

But before we go over some fraud prevention techniques you can use to potentially prevent fraud and build trust with customers, let’s understand what fraud is.

Simply put, fraud is an attempt to gain something through deceptive means that rightfully belongs to someone else. Businesses have long battled fraud but with e-commerce continuously rising, you now have many more weak spots to guard. The first being your customers’ information.

Here’s what you can do:

Use advanced encryption

It doesn’t take an expert to understand that encrypted information is secured information. Even if a customer doesn’t know what it means (scrambling the data so that if someone unauthorized tries to access it, they won’t be able to read or use it) hearing the word encrypted provides them a sense of safety. Doing it is easy and so is explaining it to customers, so why think twice?

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Multi-factor authentication (MFA)

This is one more well-known technique that will help you build trust with customers, as they directly engage with it. How? They’re asked to verify their identity not only by typing in their password but also through other means, including face recognition or a security question.

Basically, even if a fraudster gets ahold of your customer’s password, they still wouldn’t be able to access their account and details without the additional verification. They’ll hit a dead end.

Invest in an anti-fraud platform

Now, this one is a little bit different, as it’s more of an inside technique. It involves finding and investing in an anti-fraud platform that’ll do all the monitoring and securing for you, that is:

  • Real-time monitoring: This platform is working even when you aren’t. Thanks to machine learning, it can detect suspicious patterns and notify you when there’s a reason for concern regarding customer transactions so that you can act on time.
  • Behavioral analytics: An anti-fraud platform is also familiar with how your regular customers interact with your store. It can flag any deviations from their norm, such as unusual purchasing times, locations, or buying patterns. Yes, false positives, although rare, can happen. But even if that were the case, trust me, customers would appreciate your efforts to protect them rather than be frustrated. It’s really the thought that counts.

Investing in such a platform is becoming inevitable when you’re in the e-commerce industry. It saves you a lot of time and money but most importantly, keeps you and your customers safe.

It’s extremely important to mention that investing in such robust security measures means you’re complying with regulations for fraud prevention. You will never again have to worry about finding yourself on the wrong side of the law, as a platform that fights fraud covers literally all aspects of these regulations – from monitoring to implementing measures.

Educate customers

This one is a bit unusual, mostly because not everyone has or makes the time to educate customers on potential online scams. That’s exactly why I think that security is often overlooked.

But you know what? You don’t have to explain the same thing to each one of your customers. You can simply add a section on your website about the most common threats and how they can protect themselves, as well as about how your business protects them.

Remember – transparency breeds trust, and trust is the key to your business’s success.

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How customer trust benefits your e-commerce business

We’ve already explained how customer trust helps position your business as trustworthy in the industry. But there’s more to it. Customer trust also directly impacts your bottom line:

Increased conversion rates

One of the biggest benefits of building customer trust through fraud prevention is the increase in conversion rates. It’s only natural for customers to think twice before leaving their personal details on a random website, but that’s not the case when they trust you to keep them secure.

When you get them to trust you, they’re more likely to complete a purchase and less likely to abandon the cart. They’re also more likely to come back and purchase once again, potentially becoming repeat customers. For example, 34% of customers have said that they’d consider shopping on social media if they knew how their data was being processed and secured. This only tells you that no matter the platform, security matters and fraud isn’t taken lightly.

But that’s not all. When customers trust you and are satisfied with their purchases, they’re also more likely to refer you to their friends and family. And trust me, positive word-of-mouth means a lot in today’s competitive e-commerce industry. It brings even more customers your way.

All these combined translate to improved reputation and increased conversion rates.

Competitive advantage

Having customers that trust you is a real flex in the e-commerce industry. You immediately stand out among other businesses, not only because you’re considered trustworthy but also because you now have a green light to increase prices without the fear of losing customers.

Once they get used to your brand and trust you to deliver, they have no problem paying more than usual. They’d rather do that than go through the trouble of finding another business they can trust. Customers who trust you are long-term customers, and that’s a fact.

The power of trust and security in e-commerce

Yes, fraud prevention is an effective strategy that you can use to protect your and your customers’ information while getting them to trust you. However, it’s becoming more than that.

We see fraudsters changing their tactics continuously. We face fraud incidents among many e-commerce businesses daily. With this in mind, it’s safe to say that there’s no end in sight to fraudulent attacks, leading to fraud prevention techniques becoming more of a necessity.

Regardless of what your goal is, fraud prevention is never a bad choice. It helps you build trust with customers, enhances your reputation, and protects both your business and your customers.

It’s like killing two birds with one stone.

Bio

Makedonka Micajkova is a freelance content writer and translator, always bringing creativity and originality to the table. Being multilingual with professional proficiency in English, German, and Spanish, it’s needless to say that languages are her biggest passion in life. She is also a skilled communicator, as a result of having three years of experience as a sales representative. You can find her on Linkedin.