A recent study from the Pew Internet Project highlights on the love and hate relationship that numerous Americans share with e-commerce. Results of the survey say that 78% of internet users in America agree that shopping online is convenient while 68% states that they can save a lot of time with it. However, 75% of the respondents stressed out that they hate the idea of disclosing their personal information such as their credit card number and details via internet.
These security concerns and issues prevent the potential of e-commerce from growing and developing as stated by John Horrigan, Pew Internet Project’s Associate Director and author of the said report. These risks remain to be questionable whether they are just perceived by the internet users or they are real, after all.
Horrigan had stated that despite the level of maturity that e-commerce had gone through over the years, the confidence and trust of people with regards to this still remains an unresolved issue. He further stated that if only the internet users and potential online shoppers would stop worrying about security concerns, there would be a lot more people shopping online. Horrigan further estimated that the percentage of American consumers using the internet to do online shopping could go up by 7%. This can be achieved if worries about threats and loss of security would be lessened.
However, a lot of experts in payment security agree that credit card purchases done online are, generally speaking, more secured than purchases done in stores or shops contrary to what American people are thinking. Numerous brick-and-mortar retail sellers are behind the curve in terms of security of payments according to Rob Tourt, PCI Security Standards Council Chair. One reason is because a lot of traditional retailers still run old systems that do not have the security mechanism developed in the newly developed and more hi-tech e-commerce payment systems. Moreover, when the credit card is swiped by the cashier, the retailer actually captures a lot more information, Tourt disclosed to InternetNews.com. This is because a lot of data can be snagged via the credit card’s magnetic stripe. This can actually compromise the account in cases of breach.
Another data gathered from the research indicates that people use the internet in order to make researches about certain products rather than buying. Another finding is that Americans from the low-income households see a lot of risks in online shopping compared to Americans who are from the elite class. And finally, 39% of the people who participated in this research had claimed that they are doing online banking; this is in comparison to the 27% that resulted in the Pew study made last February of 2005.
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Comments
Allan Shearer said on February 20th at 12:22 am,
I once used my credit card in a well known site and i have not used it anywhere else online and found after a month that my credit card has been used on various other sites too. Someone had hacked on my cc info and had used it illegaly, from then i have stopped using my credit card online. Now this article proves my point. Good one.
harshads said on February 20th at 01:22 am,
Online shopping is major issue nowadays and people are more concern about it.
I have seen so many people do not have any knowledge about the e-commerce and they get trapped in the fraud.
So it is better to shop securely from well known companies on the internet.
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