Shopping online is tremendously convenient for consumers – the web enables them to make purchases without ever having to leave the comfort of their own home. However, this also opens the door to fraud, which is a significant risk that consumers have to take whenever they submit their data over the internet.

Retailers need to walk a fine line between offering too much fraud security and not enough. According to a recent survey by Accertify, 28 percent of customers have encountered excessive anti-fraud procedures that denied or delayed their transactions. Conversely, consumers are likely not to shop with a retailer at all if they have no fraud prevention measures in place.

"It is clear that narrow fraud programs can actually push legitimate customers away," said Jeff Liesendahl, senior vice president of Accertify at American Express. "Merchants with inflexible fraud prevention technology or who manually review every suspect transaction end up delaying and denying legitimate transactions."

Retail merchants should put themselves in the shoes of their customers when trying to streamline the online shopping experience. What would drive them to competitors? Conversely, what could be done to enhance it?

This entry was posted by Retail Pro on Friday, January 27th, 2012 at 3:16 am .