{"id":936,"date":"2016-06-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motionpoint.com\/?post_type=blog&p=936"},"modified":"2016-06-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-06-23T00:00:00","slug":"avoiding-fraud-while-serving-global-markets","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.motionpoint.com\/blog\/avoiding-fraud-while-serving-global-markets\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoiding Fraud While Serving Global Markets"},"template":"","blog_categories":[5,9],"resource_categories":[],"targeted_localized_audience":[],"document_categories":[],"class_list":["post-936","blog","type-blog","status-publish","hentry","blog_categories-international-business-strategies","blog_categories-marketing-strategies"],"acf":{"blog_short_description":"Some common sense tips, from one of our Global Growth analysts.","news_inline_styles":"","blog_video_id":"","article_body":"

Iconic broadcast journalist and Nightline <\/i>anchor Ted Koppel recently proclaimed that cybersecurity is one of the greatest threats facing the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are arguably facing more dangerous threats than we ever faced before,\u201d he told attendees of a recent retail-industry conference, \u201cwith a more difficult conundrum confronting whoever the next president of the U.S. is going to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

These dangers lurk for institutions beyond government. Online security for e-commerce sites\u2014and combating online fraud\u2014is an increasingly critical component of the retail industry. This is particularly relevant to e-retailers serving global markets.<\/p>\n

We briefly spoke with Eric Watson, a Global Online Strategist for MotionPoint\u2019s Global Growth team, about the topic.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cFraudulent orders are a very real worry for global e-commerce retailers,\u201d Eric says. \u201cThe amount of fraudulent orders can vary wildly from market to market. This means companies that offer their products abroad must be able to identify and deal with these orders in a sustainable way.\u201d Many African and Latin American countries are often singled out as being hotspots for fraudulent online activity. But this activity is far from rare in Europe and the U.S., Eric says.<\/p>\n

How can companies protect themselves from online fraud and other security risks? For starters, make card verification value codes mandatory for transactions, Eric says. \u201cThis is the three-digit \u2018CVV\u2019 code on the back of the card that ensures that the person entering the information on your website does have physical possession of the credit card,\u201d he explains. \u201cThis goes a long way to mitigate the risks of people using credit card numbers that they have digitally stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n

And speaking of credit card numbers: never store them, Eric says. One of the best ways to do this is avoid using offline credit card processing as a payment option. This allows merchants to manually process credit card orders later. Those fully-readable card numbers are risky to keep, even if you intend to delete them later (as you\u2019re obligated to do).<\/p>\n

In fact, don\u2019t store any sensitive data, advises one expert. \u201cThere is no reason to store thousands of records on your customers, especially credit card numbers, expiration dates and CVV2 codes,\u201d he told CIO<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another method to avoiding fraud is to require that cross-border customers\u2019 delivery addresses match their billing addresses, Eric says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t a fool-proof solution, since some consumers may have recently moved, or are ordering a gift for delivery to another address,\u201d he admits. \u201cThese exceptions often persuade most companies to ignore this recommendation. But we believe you turn on this sort of feature. So how do you go about doing this without alienating consumers? This segues to our next point: leverage your data to protect your business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, there are many aspects of e-commerce orders that companies can examine to better inform its security decisions. \u201cUnfortunately, for a company seeking to expand internationally, simply blocking orders from entire countries or international orders in general\u2014as a significant amount of retailers do\u2014may not be viable,\u201d Eric says. \u201cProactively managing a multitude of signals is critical for ecommerce companies operating internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some data points to examine include:<\/p>\n