Nobody has a fraud problem until it happens – Chris Burns – CEO, First Atlantic Commerce.
The pandemic undoubtedly accelerated the adoption of eCommerce within the Caribbean and many entrepreneurs were eager to get their businesses online to maintain sales. This gave way to many business owners engaging in the use of eCommerce-ready website templates to establish their online presence in the shortest period of time. For business owners who had no prior experience within the digital space, this meant that they had a number of considerations to undertake such as the potential of fraudulent transactions and how to mitigate them.
Here are 3 Reasons Why You Should Protect Your Online Business from Fraud:
- To Ensure Your Customers Feel Safe
You are responsible for how your customers experience your brand. They should feel safe and empowered to shop on your website. Therefore, you have to ensure that your website is secure so that your customers’ information is protected at all times.
- Fraud is an Expensive Experience
Being online does not automatically mean that your website is secure. You have to ensure that you use gateways and plug-ins that support fraud prevention solutions such as Kount. If you’re a small business owner, you can’t afford to lose any revenue which is a consequence of being the victim of fraud. From that perspective, you may not have any way to absorb those losses, if you’re a smaller merchant. So, if you’re not protecting yourself from the beginning and you do encounter these fraud issues, they may hit you harder than larger companies who may have the ability to absorb that from a cash flow perspective.
- You could lose your Merchant Account
If your chargeback ratio goes up, the bank may just cancel your merchant account altogether and then you would not be able to collect online payments from your customers. Attempting to get another merchant account after you’ve been terminated by a bank – due to your chargebacks being too high – is incredibly difficult and if you do find one the rates are going to be really high. For first-time business owners entering the online space, it is suggested that you put your anti-fraud measures in place at the start so you don’t run into those issues in the future.
Check out our video below to learn more about How to Protect Your Online Business from Fraud in the Caribbean.
This article is based on a discussion with Jamie Kinshella and Dan Beardall from Kount. Sign up to be notified when our CEO, Christopher Burns, goes live on LinkedIn & YouTube to discuss all things e-commerce in Latin America & the Caribbean, on the #FACLive Show.