• by Ray Schultz , December 3, 2020

Ecommerce fraud has declined by 1% worldwide from what it was during the holiday shopping season in 2019. Still, suspected fraud is 59% higher than it was in the same period in 2018, and is 14% more prevalent than the rest of 2020, according to an analysis by TransUnion. 

Compared to 2018, fraud grew by the following percentages on these dates:

- 15.54% from November 26 to November 30, 2020. 13.67% so far in 2020.

- 15.70% from November 28 to December 2, 2019. 9.80% all of 2019. 

- 9.76% from November 22 to November 26, 2018. 11.12% all of 2018. 

The days with the highest rates of suspected fraud as a percentage of all transactions were:  

Cyber Monday, November 30: 26.03% 

Saturday, November 28:        12.39% 

Thanksgiving, November 26:  12.29%  

Black Friday, November 27:   12.02% 

Sunday, November 29:          11.68% 

Globally, these were the regions with the highest percentages of suspected fraud as a percentage of all transactions:

Puerto Rico — 44.4% 

Greece — 30.9%

Hong Kong — 28.3% 

Among U..S. cities, the rates were: 

San Francisco — 9.8%

Pittsburgh — 9.7%

Los Angeles — 9.6%

“With the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating the move from offline to online transactions, detecting digital fraud attempts has become paramount for e-commerce providers,” says Shai Cohen, senior vice president of global fraud solutions at TransUnion. 

Cohen adds: “In order to avoid cart abandonment with all of these new sales opportunities, it is equally if not more important to ensure consumers are able to make friction-right digital transactions.” 

In another finding, TransUnion reports that mobile accounted for 58% of online transactions, down from 62% in 2018.  But it is up from 55% in 2018.

TransUnion also found that consumers used a mobile phone or tablet for 58% of their online retail transactions during the start of the 2020 holiday shopping season. That is slightly down from 62% for the same period in 2019 and up from 55% for the same period in 2018.  

Saturday, November 28:        62.84% 

Sunday, November 29:          62.68% 

Thanksgiving, November 26:  60.09% 

Black Friday, November 27:    57.90% 

Cyber Monday, November 30 -- 50.37% 

TransUnion conducted same-store sales analysis of its e-commerce customers during Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, the start of the global holiday shopping season.