Published: January 24, 2020
Reading time: 2 minute read
Written by: Kayla Parker

“Innocent until proven guilty is in our DNA,” explains Ata Gokyildirim, Forter GM of Asia Pacific, in a recent interview with Nora Network. He discusses all things fraud and retail, continually citing trust as a key ingredient to success in e-commerce.

The Friction Predicament 

In e-commerce, as marketing teams work tirelessly to attract new consumers to their site, a frictionless customer experience for those shoppers is paramount. These consumers browse various pages, read reviews, fill up their carts, and when they finally make it to check out, they expect to seamlessly complete their transaction.  Any added friction and consumers will likely abandon their cart. For example, a recent Forter survey found that buyers tend to bail out of their purchases if they have to complete more than just 3 steps in their transaction

However, most  retail organizations are using legacy fraud tools that rely on rules and manual reviews, which add friction to the shopping experience. These fraud tools often erroneously flag legitimate users as suspicious if their behaviors deviate from a typical or expected pattern of behavior. This results in unnecessary declines and in lost lifetime value (LTV) from frustrated customers who won’t return to the site. After all the work put in to attract consumers and encourage them to purchase, it can be extremely frustrating to lose them at the point of checkout due to failed fraud prevention measures. 

To make matters worse, Ata explains that it’s quite common that less advanced fraud systems fail to distinguish the behaviors of today’s consumers from those of fraudsters. Legitimate consumers shop using VPNs, they browse on their phones while traveling overseas, and they buy gifts for their kids across the globe while waiting in airport lounges. It’s important for merchants to trust these legitimate customers, even if their behaviors might confuse legacy, rules-based fraud systems. 

All About Accuracy

Merchants need to turn away from rules and manual reviews and partner with a comprehensive fraud prevention solution that understands consumers and how they behave, on any device, in any location. Forter analyzes over 6,000 individual data points to fully understand the person behind the transaction, and assesses trust at every point of the customer journey. Armed with this breadth of data, Forter’s system is able to distinguish between legitimate consumers and fraudulent actors, even if someone is buying a book for their daughter in New York, while they sit in their hotel room in Tokyo using a VPN to access the internet.

Forter also utilizes a robust global network of merchant data. Processing over $150 billion in e-commerce transactions annually, 97% of online purchases made in U.S. are made by consumers known by Forter, and  they can be deemed trustworthy as soon as they begin their shopping journey. Furthermore, if Forter sees a new method of attack or fraud ring emerging, the system can instantly protect the rest of the network from ever seeing those forms of attacks or fraudulent actors. 

Interested in hearing more about how Forter helps optimize businesses for growth? Watch Ata explain how Forter brings trust to e-commerce in the full interview here.

2 minute read