Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

The 2017 Identity Fraud Study released today by Javelin Strategy & Research (@JavelinStrategy), revealed that the number of identity fraud victims increased by sixteen percent (rising to 15.4 million U.S. consumers) in the last year, a record high since Javelin Strategy & Research began tracking identity fraud in 2003. The study found that despite the efforts of the industry, fraudsters successfully adapted to net two million more victims this year with the amount fraudsters took rising by nearly one billion dollars to $16 billion.
There was a resurgence in existing card fraud in 2016, which saw an increase of 40 percent in card-not-present (CNP) fraud.The study also found that the increase in EMV cards and terminals was a catalyst for driving fraudsters to shift to fraudulently opening new accounts. On a positive note, while fraudsters are becoming better at evading detection, consumers with an online presence are getting better at detecting fraud quicker, leading to less stolen overall per attempt....

The online retail ecosystem is fast evolving, and increasingly, shoppers no longer simply go to the nearest store. Rather, they grab the nearest digital device. And with the world at our fingertips, why only shop domestically? In fact, digital analytics firm eMarketer projects that online retail sales will more than double between 2015 and 2019 and account for more than 12% of global sales by 2019. Retail therapy is giving way to e-tail therapy.

To gain a better understanding of how consumers are navigating the connected commerce landscape, the Nielsen Global Connected Commerce Survey polled respondents in 26 countries. We looked at how consumers are using the Internet to make shopping decisions both in stores and online, and we examined what they’re buying, where they’re purchasing and how they’re paying for goods and services.

While connected commerce is still largely a domestic affair, with consumers primarily ordering from retailers in their own country, cross-border ecommerce is a growing phenomenon. Shoppers are increasingly looking outside their country’s borders, as more than half of online respondents in the study who made an online purchase in the past six months say they bought from an overseas retailer (57%).

Nearly three-quarters of Indian respondents* who purchased online in the past six months say they bought items from an overseas retailer (74%). But this isn’t just a developing-market trend. Roughly two-thirds of respondents in the Western European countries in the survey say they purchased from an overseas retailer, including 79% in Italy—the highest percentage in the online study—and 73% in Germany....