Having a good online store isn’t just a cool feature for businesses in today’s world — it’s something that really matters if you want to be successful. And perhaps even more importantly, you have to make sure that your business’s online marketplace is both efficient and secure, even down to making sure that you’re using secure payment processing solutions for credit card payment systems.
But just why is e-commerce so important? And why do secure payment processing systems matter so much too? Here are a few statistics that might shed some light on the matter:
- Online shopping isn’t just a trend that “kids these days” will forget about in a year from now. It’s expected that, by the end of 2015, at least 1.2 billion people across the world will have purchased an item or service online one or more times. Experts also estimate that by 2018, online transactions will reach about 125 billion transactions per year.
- Believe it or not Millennials aren’t the only ones purchasing products online anymore. In fact, about two-thirds of all Baby Boomers have made an online purchase at least once before, and even if they aren’t making purchases, they’re definitely looking at products online before they buy something in-store. Online shopping has a huge effect on increasing sales in a brick-and-mortar store, and in the U.S. it’s estimated that well over 200 million Americans will be using online marketplaces to do product research and make purchases.
- According to the most recent surveys, around 60% of consumers are concerned about potential credit and debit card fraud when they purchase something online — and security is an issue that businesses need to be concerned about, too. Stolen credit card information can be used to make transactions online very easily, and unless the merchant is using a secure payment processing system, that merchant could be held liable for the fraudulent charges. Every year, U.S. businesses end up paying millions of dollars to consumers when a fraudulent purchase was made using an individual’s personal information.
