Two Thirds of Consumers Have ‘Zero Tolerance’ for eCommerce Fraud

There’s no forgive or forget when it comes to eCommerce fraud.

To that end, merchants are on the hook for data security, for the trust that consumers place in them — not just to get the goods and services that they demand to them with speed, but to do it safely, too.

And in the Securing eCommerce Study conducted jointly between PYMNTS and NuData, the stark realities of what happens when that trust is breached become readily apparent.

Namely, those consumers will vote with their feet — literally.

As seen in the table below, just about two-thirds of more than 2,300 consumers surveyed said they would be slightly or not at all likely to continue using a merchant after experiencing data theft or fraud — which means, of course, the merchant would be losing a sizable chunk of its user base and revenues.

Drill down a bit, and the outlook doesn’t waver all that much, even generationally. Baby boomers would be most inclined to leave those merchants, at more than 80 percent; Gen Z seems a bit more, well, forgiving, with a percentage of just under 53 percent who would be disinclined to continue on with those relationships.

A broad swath of consumers, as measured by their income, would be only slightly willing to consider coming back to an eTailer following attempted fraud or theft. The report shows that 67 percent of middle-income consumers (individuals who earn between $50,000 and $100,000) would fall into that mindset.