Retailers concerned by the safety of online shopping platforms have little to worry about. According to a new survey by CyberSource, the online fraud rate hit a 13-year low in 2011, declining from 0.9 percent in 2010 to 0.6 percent.

While fraudsters didn't manage to steal as much, they were more prone to target big-ticket items. In fact, total dollar values were up – criminals stole approximately $3.4 billion from U.S. and Canadian e-tailers last year, an increase from the $2.7 billion pilfered in 2010. Luxury good sellers should take note and ramp up security on their ecommerce platforms.

"The continued growth in ecommerce is a welcome development for merchants and the economy overall," says Andrew Naumann, CyberSource's senior business leader for fraud management solutions. "The bad news is that fraudsters took in a higher dollar volume, the first such increase we've seen since 2008."

Given the rampant growth of ecommerce – more than $35 billion was spent over November and December 2011 alone – it's vital that retail brands have some sort of online shopping platform in place. They just need to look out for suspicious activity to avoid being scammed.

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 at 2:31 am .