Consumers place more trust in well-known and larger brands to keep their personal and payment data safe when shopping online than they do smaller retailers, research from SOTI has revealed. More than half (59 per cent of consumers trust large and well-known online retailers to keep their data secure, while almost half (47 per cent) of consumers report feeling nervous about the ability of smaller retailers to do so.
The research was conducted among 6,000 respondents across eight countries (UK, U.S., Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, Sweden and Australia) to understand consumers’ retail experiences, their preferences, and their expectations during and after the pandemic.
The SOTI report, From Bricks to Clicks: State of Mobility in Retail 2021 Report, found that despite the pandemic forcing retailers to digitally transform, consumer doubts remain around eCommerce data security. In fact, 45 per cent of all shoppers feel their data is secure when they shop online.
“The past year has seen incredible amounts of uncertainty and change thrown at the retail industry,” said Sarah Edge, director of sales, UK and Ireland at SOTI. “Prolonged store closures have meant that businesses have had to adapt at scale, embracing an online and mobile-first approach to meet new customer demands. Despite this, concerns around data security still exist.”
“While innovation and competitiveness are important, what cannot be rushed or compromised is consumer trust. Data privacy and security has been a critically important issue for consumers for many years, with data leaks and hacks increasingly making headline news. It is therefore imperative, as more retailers migrate online, that businesses address these concerns and give customers total peace of mind. This is especially true for smaller retailers that have a lot of ground to make up compared to their larger rivals.”
Indicating just how significant data security when shopping online is to consumers, the research found that almost half (48 per cent) claim to have abandoned an online purchase because they did not trust the site with their details.
Share