For
e-commerce, Christmas is a gift in its
own right. And it keeps on giving… despite ongoing
security concerns.
For much of the world, Christmas is the time
of year the e-commerce sector receives the gift of significant
sales uplift. MasterCard’s senior business leader for consumer and
market intelligence,
Tony Costella, refers to internal data from both the UK and the
Czech Republic – an example of a developed e-commerce market and a
developing one respectively – to explain that in both countries,
each year, around Christmas time, the volumes of transactions made
online soar.
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What is surprising is that after Christmas,
the volumes to never return to pre-Christmas levels – instead, they
more or less stagnate until the next festive season.
But there is substantial need for
sophisticated software for e-commerce – to guarantee merchant
uptake and consumer adoption. Although more and more online
retailers use 3D Secure as a fraud prevention tool, a chunky 40% of
merchants in the UK are reluctant to implement the additional layer
of security for online card transactions. And that is because, Sage
Pay found, merchants worry the extra step in check outs will lead
customers to cancel their purchase.
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By GlobalDataOn the consumer side, a research paper by IT
company
Avira found in July that 70% of consumers either do not shop at all
online or do it, but are worried about their financial
security. Making online sales and purchases simpler for customers
and more secure for merchants is therefore essential- especially
considering the value of online purchases has risen by 14% to
£5.2bn ($8.1bn) in the twelve months to August, according to
research by Capgemini.
This steep potential and growing rise in
e-commerce providers security and processing solution providers
with ample opportunity to generate revenues – and some have begun
to seize the chance.
First Data’s merchant acquiring business arm partnered with of
e-commerce shopping cart software provider Volusion to provide
additional options for payment processing to its customers in the
UK. First data Merchant Solutions foresees an opportunity to expand
its business in Europe in the latter half of 2012. The initiative
will support entrepreneurs and SMEs in the quest to easily set up
all the elements required to sell products and services online
including merchandising, multi-level marketing as well as debit and
credit card processing.
In Latin America, Brazilian merchant acquirer
and payment processor
Cielo joined forces with mobile solutions and fixed line
networks NewNet for the rollout of a nationwide payments processing
network to launch what it called “innovative and superior
m-commerce and e-commerce payments services”.
One thing to consider in the e-commerce space,
if not in all aspects, is banks’ debit card strategy.
Debit card strategy dominated the agenda of this year’s Cards
& Payments Europe Conference. Return on investment in debit is
hard to gauge, but banks’ credit-wary customers are encouraging
banks to build on their debit offer.
One cannot consider income streams simply as
revenue from product fees and interchange alone – but has to
consider that debit encourages higher customer deposits. Moving
customers away from withdrawing cash and using their cards at the
POS (or online) should be a key strategy for banks in the New
Year.
