If you read only one report on fraud a year (hopefully you’re reading more…) then download the new CyberSource Fraud Report for 2008. A lot of good nuggets in here:

• The rate of fraudulent transactions held steady at a low 1.4% of sales
• On average merchants reject 4.2% of orders with 1.3% actually fraudulent
• International orders are more then twice as likely to be trouble
• Retailers used, on average, 5.4 tools to manage fraud

You can download the UK version of this report from CyberSource’s UK site.

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Courtesy of the UK Retail Bulletin come a few tell-tale signs that someone’s trying to commit online fraud. Not revolutionary, but nevertheless important to reiterate.

“1. You receive a phone call from the ‘Customer’ post-order but pre-fulfillment requesting a change in delivery address

2. ‘Testing’ with a low-value order to check the card works, and then placing a high value order straight after.

3. The bill-to-address is more than 50 miles from the delivery address.

4. Orders from known fraud hotspots such as SE28, Estonia and Nigeria.

5. The use of a free email address that has little resemblance to the customer name. “

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Via auctionwire comes the news that PayPal has recently been given an Online Safety Leadership Award by the Authentication and Online Trust Alliance (AOTA) in the eCommerce category.

“With more than 143 million accounts worldwide, PayPal is trusted by its customers because the service was designed from the ground up to be the safe way to send and receive money online. We are combating phishing and spoof through the use of leading security and anti-fraud technologies and collaboration with the industry, law enforcement, and consumers alike, said Michael Barrett, chief information security officer at PayPal. We are delighted and honored to be recognized for our leadership role in keeping our customers safe and preserving trust online.”

Well-deserved recognition. As a consumer I think that PayPal is a tremendous payment system and the best way to send & receive funds from other individuals (death to paper checks …).

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I have just returned from our annual Catalyst UK conference in London and similar to Catalyst U.S. in Pinehurst it was a marvelous event (we should all be saying marvelous more often). and a great opportunity to meet online retailers, partners and solution providers (photos will be available shortly).

First of all, kudos go out to the City of London, the spectacular weather, the Royal Horseguard hotel (the venue for the event) and of course our marketing team in the UK. If you want to work with kick-***, gung-ho, we-leave-no-stone-unturned people check out the five openings available in our Richmond office. Wait — there’s even a job right on the marketing team!

Scot posted some great impressions and key take-aways, but here are a few of my own thoughts:

– Google Checkout is going international and had its first public presentation of Google Checkout in the UK at the Catalyst conference, reviewing both the mechanics and business benefits of this third-party checkout solution (a lot of which was covered during our joint webinar with Google yesterday - a recording should be available shortly). Should you do it? Read Scot’s posts from June last year for some good insights (Google Checkout is Live!, Why Should Consumers Care?).

(more…)

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We’re excited to greet our Friday blog readers with some very exciting news!

In the last few hours, Google has rolled out its popular payment method, Google Checkout in the UK.

And of course, ChannelAdvisor has been working closely with Google UK for several months to ensure we were able to support this new payment option from day one. Which is great news for our UK clients who will be among the first retailers in the UK to be able to take advantage of all its benefits. Check out our official press release.

If you want to learn more now, read on….

What is Google Checkout?
Google Checkout is an alternative checkout flow that is designed to be fast, easy and secure. Industry data shows that a whopping 63% of checkouts are abandoned by shoppers AFTER they start to checkout. That’s a lot of lost sales. So, Google set out to come up with a cleaner, easier checkout process that would ensure more of these shoppers turn into buyers. Enter Google Checkout.

Google Checkout launched in the US in June 2006 and ChannelAdvisor offered immediate support then as well. Over the past 9 months our US clients have given us really positive feedback about the impact on their conversions, as well as their improved click-through rates on their Adwords listings.

So, let’s take a look at exactly what Google has announced so far:

For merchants:

• FREE payment processing for merchants for the rest of 2007 !
• After the free payment processing expires (i.e. Jan 1st 2008) get £10 free payment processing for every £1 spent on Google Adwords
• A very competitive 1.5% + 15p charged on all transactions that fall outside the above two conditions
• Free fraud protection technology

For buyers:

• A crazy £10 off any order over £30 if paid for using Google Checkout!

This is incredible news for both merchants and buyers. If you’re a merchant selling online then we recommend you take a look at how Google Checkout can help you to save a ton of money on processing fees.

And don’t forget that it should also improve the ROI of your paid search campaigns.

How? Simple. If you are a Google Adwords advertiser and you accept Google Checkout on your website, a snazzy Google Checkout badge will appear on your Adwords listings. We’ve seen this positively impact buyer click-through rates (CTR) when compared to listings without the badge - which means, assuming an identical bid amount, your ads will appear higher than competitor’s that aren’t accepting Google Checkout.

Want to learn more?
Here are some great Google resources to find out more:

Google Checkout official website - http://www.google.co.uk/checkout

Google Checkout blog - http://googlecheckout.blogspot.com/

Meet the Google Team!
And if you want to hear from Google in the flesh, then be sure to make it along to our Catalyst conference next Wednesday 18th and Thursday 19th to meet the team from Google UK and hear a presentation from Robert Swerling, Strategic Partner Development Manager at Google. We have a few seats left so please register and join us if you can!

Sign up for our webinar
If you’re not able to make it along to Catalyst, then be sure to register for our upcoming webinar, “Google Checkout UK Explained” which takes place at 2pm GMT on Monday 23rd April. Google will be co-presenting this webinar with ChannelAdvisor so expect lots of great content and a sizable Q&A section! Details on how to register for this webinar will be posted to the blog very soon.

Watch this space for lots more info!

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