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%
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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.