For last minute holiday bookings, DIY sales and chocolate, retailers rely on the Easter shopping boom. Last year, UK retailers across the board reported increases in sales during this period with Eurostar, for example, reporting an 8pc increase in Easter weekend bookings compared to the same period in the previous year say ReD.
Most retailers carefully plan their strategies for peak shopping periods like the Easter holiday – and it’s vitally important that every revenue opportunity is maximised while the customer experience is protected and maintained. This includes allowing customers to shop online right down to the last minute, and offering the fastest and most customer-centric delivery propositions on the market.
Over the last few years, we have seen the growth of ‘click and collect’, late evening ordering for next day delivery, next day before 10am and, now, the advent of same day delivery. These measures benefit customers through convenience and speed which, in turn, can lead to repeat purchases and increased customer loyalty.
The implications for fraud prevention
While retailers dedicate additional resources to ensure prompt delivery during the Easter holiday, they also need to plan for a potential increase in payment fraud attacks at this time – and adjust their fraud prevention strategies to respond effectively.
Fraudsters continually adapt, seeking out the quickest, easiest and safest opportunities to defraud, and to monetise the credit and debit cards they have obtained before those cards are reported lost or stolen. Special deliveries with short time spans between transaction and delivery will always be favoured by criminals as they provide less time in which to verify orders. Once goods are received, criminals can quickly offload them on the black market. This issue is more pronounced during the 48 hour shopping period immediately prior to the Easter or Christmas holidays.
Here’s some advice on how retailers can align their fraud prevention strategies with seasonal promotions, shopping peaks and enhanced service delivery to ensure that profits aren’t lost through fraud:
Prepare for an increase
Since shorter delivery windows have been introduced, ReD’s data typically shows that daily attempted fraud rates almost double across the final few days of online delivery in the run up to Easter and Christmas. Retailers without effective fraud prevention measures will find that a period expected to be one of their most lucrative may quickly become significantly less profitable than anticipated. Fraudsters leverage the huge spike in deliveries over a short time span to their advantage, while a desire to release over-stocked or seasonal goods quickly can mean that standard fraud controls are sometimes relaxed, with dire results.
Fraud prevention processes
Marketing departments may have pushed hard to get enhanced service and delivery options in place before the seasonal rush, but have they consulted and considered the implications for their risk colleagues? A ‘free delivery’ promotion that has not been communicated to the risk department, for example, may mean that risk rules in place against the delivery charges don’t fire, leaving the retailer more vulnerable to fraud.
Tips for busy trading periods
1. Be aware of peak fraud spikes during the last 30 minutes of delivery cut-off times
2. Monitor payments more closely on the final delivery days running up to a peak seasonal event
3. Align marketing promotions and risk strategies
4. Adopt a multi-layered approach to fraud prevention to ensure maximum protection
5. Constantly monitor the effectiveness of each fraud rule and strategy, refining the approach to make them more potent
6. Partner with a real-time, all the time fraud prevention provider – to ensure that transactions are accurately verified immediately and only genuine orders are despatched
Good fraud prevention enables retailers to offer faster deliveries, optimising sales while managing risk. During busy holiday periods, retailers should carefully assess and manage the risk of new delivery options – otherwise fraudsters will be the main beneficiaries of all their hard work.
