False positives were already a pain point for merchants but exacerbated by the pandemic. It is estimated that $146 billion worth of CNP purchase attempts are declined each year and more than half are falsely declined.
It is well and known that COVID-19 was the primary factory in the increased acceleration eCommerce growth. April and May of 2020 saw more online spending volumes than the 2019 holiday season. However, the continuation of this growth faces one obstacle: the high rate of false positives.
Merchants lost a significant number of sales because more than half of legitimate purchases were being declined erroneously as fraud, due to the sharp increase and volumes and increased friction from ill prepared fraud controls. According to Ethoca, friction causes a substantial loss of sales every year, valued around $100 billion. Ethoca also reported that 65 percent of abandoned carts are due to friction related to risk screening.
Today’s digital consumer is driven by a slick, safe and user-friendly experience when shopping online. Action must be taken to reduce friction and overcome these obstacles with urgency. Even after we are view COVID in the rearview mirror, many consumer habits that changed in response to pandemic will stick, and merchants who aren’t equipped to balance fraud and customer experience will find it difficult to sustain growth if they cannot resolve these challenges.
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