With the increasing number of online shoppers, ecommerce frauds have also multiplied over the past years. The most recent figure is from 2022, when $41 million worth of frauds were carried out.
Looking at these alarming losses, eCommerce merchants have started investing in fraud management and prevention.
Let us take a look at the current state of the ecommerce industry-related frauds in this post.
eCommerce Fraud Statistics 2024: Top picks
- eCommerce companies are predicted to lose $48 billion to fraud each year.
- The ecommerce industry lost $41 billion due to fraudulent activities in 2022.
- 40% of global ecommerce fraud attacks originate in the United States.
- Ecommerce companies lost 2.9% of their global revenue to ecommerce frauds in 2022.
- 42% of ecommerce fraud worldwide occurs in North America.
- 10% of the total annual revenue was spent on managing fraud by ecommerce merchants.
- 75% of ecommerce shoppers have committed fraud in some form.
- One-fourth of ecommerce merchants reported an increase in ecommerce fraud since the start of the pandemic.
Did you know? Global ecommerce sales are expected to reach $6,542 billion by the end of 2023.
How much is lost due to ecommerce frauds?
- The ecommerce market is forecasted to lose $48 billion to online payment fraud worldwide in 2023.
According to the estimates made by Statista, the e-commerce industry lost $41 billion to online payment fraud worldwide in 2022. These figures are expected to grow further by $7 billion this year.
This table shows the losses to online payment frauds worldwide over the years:
| Year | ecommerce losses to online payment fraud |
|---|---|
| 2023* | $48 billion |
| 2022 | $41 billion |
| 2021 | $20 billion |
| 2020 | $17.5 billion |
- The cumulative merchant losses to online payment fraud worldwide are predicted to exceed $343 billion between 2023 and 2027.
This online payment fraud includes losses that occur in sales of digital/physical goods, money transfers, banking, and purchases like airline ticketing.
The fraudsters may attack through phishing, socially engineered fraud, and business email compromise.
Source: Juniper Research.
- Physical goods purchases are the largest single source of losses.
They are predicted to account for 49% of the cumulative online payment fraud losses worldwide over the next five years. This will be a growth of 110% over the forecasted period of 5 years.
Source: Juniper Research.
- eCommerce companies lost 2.9% of global revenue to fraudsters in 2022.
This improved compared to the previous year when e-commerce companies lost 3.6% of global revenue to fraud.
Here are further details about the losses incurred by eCommerce companies.
- eCommerce merchants lost 3.0% of revenue to fraudsters or domestic orders in 2022 compared to 3.4% in 2021.
- Only 2.6% of domestic eCommerce orders were fraudulent in 2022 compared to 3.1% in the previous year.
- 3.0% of international eCommerce orders were fraudulent in 2022 compared to 3.4% in 2021.
Source: Cybersource.
- Ecommerce merchants spent 10% of the annual revenue on fraud management in 2022.
Ecommerce merchants spent the same percentage of annual revenue on fraud management in 2021.
Here is a further breakdown displaying the percentage of annual revenue spent on fraud management by businesses of different sizes.
- Small businesses: 6% of their annual revenue.
- Mid-market businesses: 11% of their annual revenue
- Large enterprises: 10% of their annual revenue.
- Every $100 lost in fraudulent orders results in $207 in losses.
These losses include shipping and fulfillment costs, wholesale costs, chargeback, and processing fees.
Source: Signifyd
- $439 million on average was lost to fraud by the consumers who used the wire transfer payment method.
This method leads to the highest payment losses as compared to other methods.
The ecommerce fraud stats further reveal that almost $125 million and $103 million are lost to fraud in the payments made through credit cards and Gift cards.
Source: FTC.
- The median monetary loss per online purchase scam was estimated to be $114 in 2022.
In 2021, it reached $101, up from $96; in 2022, there was a rise of $13 in the predicted values. This median monetary loss per online purchase scam was reduced after 2017 and increased during the pandemic.
Here are further details about the Median monetary loss per online purchase scam recorded worldwide.
| Year | Median losses |
|---|---|
| 2022 | $114 |
| 2021 | $101 |
| 2020 | $96 |
| 2019 | $76 |
| 2018 | $ 75 |
| 2017 | $100 |
| 2016 | $101 |
| 2015 | $110 |
Source: Statista.
Ecommerce Fraud Prevention Market
- Ecommerce fraud detection market is forecasted to reach $102.28 billion by the end of 2027.
Here are further details about the predicted E-commerce fraud detection and prevention market size values.
| Year | Predicted E-commerce fraud detection and prevention market size |
|---|---|
| 2024* | $58.36 billion |
| 2025* | $ 70.36 billion |
| 2026* | $84.83 billion |
| 2027* | $102.28 billion |
Source: Statista.
Ecommerce frauds in different regions
- Latin America lost 4.6% of its annual ecommerce revenue to payment fraud in 2022.
Europe and APAC regions reported a loss of 3.1% and 2.9% respectively.
At the same time, North America lost just 2.4% of its annual ecommerce revenue to payment fraud.
Source: Statista.
- 3.6% of the e-commerce merchants lost eCommerce revenue to payment fraud globally.
At the same time, 3% of ecommerce merchants in Europe and 4.3% in the APAC region lost their revenue to payment fraud.
Here are further details about the percentage of annual revenue lost to ecommerce merchants to different frauds worldwide.
| Online frauds | North America | Europe | APAC | LATAM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| payment frauds | 3.6% | 3.0% | 4.3% | 4.2% |
| payment fraud from domestic orders | 3.6 % | 2.8 % | 3.3% | 3.6% |
| Order rejection rate for domestic orders | 3.6% | 2.8 % | 2.9% | 4.4% |
| Order rejection rate forInternational orders | 6.3% | 5.1% | 5.3% | 7.0% |
| Domestic eCommerce orders that turned out to be fraudulent | 3.2% | 2.7% | 2.9% | 3.4% |
| International eCommerce orders that turned out tobe fraudulent | 3.3% | 3.0% | 3.7% | 4.0% |
| eCommerce orders that led to chargebacks | 3.4% | 2.3% | 2.9% | 3.8 % |
Source: Cybersource.
How many ecommerce frauds occur in the US?
- The majority of ecommerce frauds worldwide take place in the United States.
40% of the global ecommerce fraud attacks originate in the United States. This highlights that most online businesses in the United States are more vulnerable to ecommerce fraud.
Source: Cybersource.
- On average, 1,200 fraud attacks per month were reported by ecommerce merchants in the United States as of 2022.
This is a more than 50% increase in attacks compared to the previous year. However, only a marginal increase was observed in the successful fraud attempts.
Here are further details about the number of prevented and successful monthly fraud attacks on ecommerce merchants recorded over the years.
| Year | Prevented attacks (monthly) | Successful attacks (monthly) |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 677 | 561 |
| 2021 | 480 | 344 |
| 2020 | 118 | 226 |
| 2019 | 156 | 121 |
Source: Statista.
- 63% of the fraud costs incurred by ecommerce merchants in the United States were associated with domestic transactions.
The remaining 37% was attributed to international fraud in the United States as of 2022. This number denotes a considerable decrease in domestic frauds compared to 71% recorded in 2021, while international frauds increased.
Source: Statista.
- The largest share of fraud losses suffered by online merchants in the United States was due to friendly fraud.
It is a practice where consumers make a purchase and later request a refund. The second largest share belonged to synthetic frauds, where fraudsters create false identities for fraudulent purposes.
Here are further details about the most losses caused to e-commerce merchants in the United States according to journey stage.
| Types of fraud | New account creation | Purchase transactions | Account Login |
|---|---|---|---|
| Friendly fraud/1st party fraud | 31% | 30% | 31% |
| 3rd party/Synthetic identity fraud | 28% | 28% | 29% |
| 3rd party account takeover | 14% | 13% | 31% |
| Fraudulent request for return | 14% | 16% | 15% |
| Lost or stolen merchandise | 13% | 13% | 12% |
Source: Statista.
- Retailers and ecommerce merchants in the United States lost $3.75 for every dollar of online fraud in 2022.
This is an increase of 20% in the lost cost compared to the $3.13 recorded in 2019.
Here are further details about the total cost for every dollar of fraud cost to retailers and ecommerce merchants in the United States.
| Year | Cost per dollar of fraud in the United States |
|---|---|
| 2022 | $3.75 |
| 2021 | $3.6 |
| 2020 | $3.36 |
| 2019 | $3.13 |
| 2018 | $2.94 |
| 2017 | $2.77 |
| 2016 | $2.4 |
Source: Statista.
Ecommerce Fraud Trends 2024
- Phishing is the most common type of fraud encountered by online merchants in 2022.
43% of the online merchants reported being a victim of a phishing attack. Meanwhile, friendly or chargeback attacks were the second most common type of fraud and were followed by card testing attacks.
Here are further details about the most common attacks encountered by online merchants in 2022.
| Types of Fraud Attacks | Percentage of online merchants worldwide |
|---|---|
| Phishing / pharming / whaling | 43% |
| First-Party Misuse(i.e., friendly / chargeback fraud) | 34% |
| Card testing | 33% |
| Identity theft | 33% |
| Coupon / discount / refund abuse | 30% |
| Account takeover | 27% |
| Loyalty fraud | 22% |
| Affiliate fraud | 22% |
| Re-shipping | 20% |
| Botnets | 19% |
| Triangulation schemes | 17% |
Source: Statista.
Promo abuse
Promotion or promo abuse is online fraud involving consumers exploiting the business offers. It is one of the common issues in the ecommerce market.
- The ecommerce merchants that experienced promotional abuse reported a loss of 31% in their annual marketing spend.
This is more significant than the losses from chargebacks and other payment-related frauds.
Source: Ekata
- 29% of the organizations named promo abuse as the top 3 fraud types.
Besides, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia are the top three countries with the highest rates of promotional fraud.
Source: Forrester Research.
- Businesses in the United States lost $189 billion in revenue due to promo frauds.
At the same time, businesses in the United Kingdom lost £137 billion.
Source: Ekata.
Friendly fraud
- 23% of the consumers admitted to disputing purchases as fraud even though they received a satisfactory item.
This is commonly known as friendly fraud or first-party fraud. Nearly one in four consumers who file chargebacks admit to participating in chargebacks.
Source: Shift.
- The most disputed items are clothing, subscription goods, and electronics.
According to Shift, 21% of consumers participate in friendly fraud in the clothing industry. While 19% participate in friendly fraud of subscription goods and 18% participate in friendly fraud of electronics.
Account takeover (ATO)
- 22% of the adults in the United States reported being victims of account takeover fraud.
According to Security.org, more than 24 million households have been victims of ATO. The report further states that the average financial loss per case was around $12,000.
- Account takeover losses increased by 90% in 2021 alone.
According to Javelin’s 2022 report, $11.4 billion was lost due to the account takeover fraud.
- The frequency of account takeover attacks increased by 307% between 2019 and 2021.
This was in the pandemic era when most of the new accounts were created on different platforms.
Source: Shift.
- In the first half of 2022, UK finance recorded 34,114 cases of card identity theft.
This led to a gross loss of £21.4 million for the UK, which equals $25.65 million. It reveals that ATO frauds are mostly targeted in countries with high GDPs.
Source: DataDome.
- One in five Europeans suffer from identity theft between 2020 and 2022.
According to data from Finanso, Identity theft was the second most common type of fraud in Europe.
triangulation scam
- Triangulation scam is estimated to cost $130 billion to merchants worldwide by the end of 2023.
Triangulation fraud involves a customer, a fraudster, and a merchant. The fraudsters collect consumers’ payment details by creating fake marketplaces and use them to purchase items from the legitimate marketplace.
Source: Ekata.
- The Facebook database leak contained data of more than 533 million verified records.
In January 2021, the Facebook database leak created a treasure of user data for fraudsters. These data included the user details of Facebook users from 106 countries, including 32 million records from the United States, 1 million users from the United Kingdom, and 6 million users from India.
Source: Business Insider.
Ecommerce Credit card fraud statistics
- 46% of ecommerce credit card frauds occur in the United States.
The e-commerce credit card fraud in the United States have increased by 140% over the past three years.
This is because online sellers are primary targets of fraudsters, and the number of online businesses has rapidly increased in the country. Hence, nearly half of the credit card fraud takes place here.
Source: Legaljobs, Merchant Cost Consulting.
- Global credit card fraud is estimated to reach $43 billion by the end of the year 2026.
Ecommerce fraud stats reveal the total losses from credit card fraud worldwide were $32.4 billion in 2021. If the projections are accurate, there will be a 4.5% increase in the losses through credit card fraud.
Source: merchant cost consulting.
- 111,000 credit card fraud cases were reported by cardholders between the ages of 30 to 39.
This age group has reported the most cases of credit card identity theft. Besides, only 2000 people over the age of 80 reported a credit card theft incident.
Source: merchant cost consulting.
Non-delivery of good ecommerce fraud statistics
- Non-delivery of goods costs consumers a loss of over $264 when combined with non-payment for goods.
According to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, non-delivery is one of the top incidents reported.
Source: FBI, Internet Crime Complaint Center.
- Almost 20% of the people know someone who has committed non-delivery fraud over the last 12 months.
One in 5 people admitted that they knew someone who had committed this fraud.
Source: CIFAS.
Ecommerce fraud prevention statistics
- 75% of the ecommerce companies stated they plan to increase their fraud prevention budget over the next year.
20% of these companies plan to expand their budget by at least 20% until next year. However, 5% of the companies said they plan to reduce the budget over the next year.
Source: Ravelin.
- 61% of ecommerce merchants believe that two-factor authentication is the most effective way to prevent fraud.
53% of the ecommerce merchants stated that device ID solutions to be the most effective tool in fraud prevention.
Lastly, 45% and 40% of the e-commerce merchants said they believe rules and behavioral biometrics are the most effective ways, respectively.
Source: Ravelin.
- 89% of the eCommerce merchants use compelling evidence to fight chargeback claims.
Visa, American Express, and other top credit card services allow ecommerce merchants to dispute chargeback claims by using compelling evidence.
These policies and guidelines are constantly evolving, and 89% of merchants believe these policy changes are beneficial.
Source: Cybersource.
- On average, most ecommerce companies use five fraud detection tools.
These tools help ecommerce companies prevent fraud and dispose of them.
Here are further details about the fraud detection tools used by the e-commerce companies.
- 55% of the companies use credit card verification services.
- 44% use two-factor phone authentication.
- 50% use identity verification services.
- 34% use internal customer order history.
- 39% use 3-D secure authentication.
Source: Cybersource.
- 63% of the ecommerce companies said they plan to scale down or completely stop manual screening.
On average, ecommerce companies manually screen 19% of orders for fraud. Of these, 15% of the orders or 3% of the total orders are fraud.
Even though it is an effective technique, it requires more time and energy. Hence, most ecommerce companies are stepping back from the process, and only 21% of companies will include it in the cor4e part of their fraud prevention strategy.
Source: Cybersource.
- Around 80% of the merchants are using outsourced tools.
In-house solutions are more expensive to maintain than replace over time. Hence, most large businesses prefer to use outsourced tools.
Source: Ravelin.
- 59% of ecommerce companies use CAPTHAs to prevent account takeover frauds.
These CAPTHAs are the most common tool used by the merchants.
Besides, 46% of the merchants use additional bot detection tools, 26% use behavioral biometrics, and 38% use two-factor authentication to prevent account takeover fraud.
Source: Ravelin.
- The primary means of online Shopping scams globally was Websites.
36.7% of online shoppers lost their money on website scams. At the same time, 20.3% and 19.8% of the shoppers reported losing money through Social media and email, respectively.
Source: Statista.
Ecommerce fraud done by Consumers
- One-quarter of ecommerce shoppers have committed fraud in some form.
25% of the ecommerce shoppers asked for a refund while keeping the product, 24% returned a different item than what they purchased, 22% lied about receiving an unsatisfactory product, and 21% about the order not being received.
Source: Signifyd.
- 62% of the ecommerce consumers that have been victims of payment fraud were attacked 2 to 4 times.
Besides, 43% of ecommerce shoppers reported that they had been a victim of payment fraud. Over half of them have recurring experience of e-commerce fraud.
Source: Sift.
- Only 39% of the ecommerce shoppers who committed ecommerce fraud knew that their actions were fraudulent.
A survey conducted by Riskified found that 45% of ecommerce consumers committed some form of return fraud or policy abuse.
Besides, 65% of the respondents between the age of 18-29 admitted committing some form of fraud. Comparatively, only 22% of the respondents over 50 years accepted that they had committed ecommerce fraud.
- Online Shopping scams made up 30% of the total online scams in 2022.
71.6% of these scams resulted in financial loss for the victims. While the rest suffered data loss or other.
Source: BBB Scam Tracker.
- Men lose more money in online scams than women.
68.4% of all online purchase scams targeted women in 2022, while 31.6% targeted men. However, the median loss for women was $100 for women and $168 for men.
Source: BBB Scam Tracker.
- Elder Millennials and Gen Xers are 77.3% susceptible to online payment scams.
Adults aged between 35 and 44 have the highest susceptibility and exposure to online payment scams. They are 22.3% exposed to online scams.
Conversely, GenZs aged between 18 and 24 report the highest median loss of $156.
Fraud Management Statistics
- Small and medium-sized businesses spend 12% of annual ecommerce revenue on managing payment fraud.
Large enterprises also spend the same percentage of annual e-commerce revenue, while mid-market companies spend 10% on managing payment frauds.
Source: Statista.
- 69% of online merchants in the United States have increased their budget allocated for fraud prevention.
While 25% of the merchants did not change their budget, and 5% reduced it.
Here are further details about the change in the budget allocated by online merchants in different countries.
| Country | Increase in budget | No change | Decrease in budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | 86% | 13% | 1% |
| Brazil | 87% | 9% | 4% |
| Canada | 85% | 15% | 0% |
| France | 70% | 26% | 4% |
| Germany | 73% | 20% | 7% |
| Italy | 67% | 26% | 7% |
| Mexico | 78% | 9% | 13% |
| Spain | 72% | 21% | 7% |
| UK & Ireland | 62% | 32% | 6% |
| USA | 70% | 25% | 5% |
Source: Statista.
Impact of Covid-19 on Ecommerce frauds
- 75% of the merchants reported a net increase in fraud attempts since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.
At the same time, 72% of the merchants noted that there had been a net rise in the fraud rate by revenue.
Here are further details about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on fraud attempts and fraud rates experienced by online merchants worldwide.
| Amount of increase | Fraud attempts | Fraud rate by revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Significant Increase | 15% | 14% |
| Moderate increase | 36% | 2% |
| Small increase | 24% | 26% |
| About the same | 21% | 26% |
| Decrease | 4% | 5% |
Source: Statista.
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So, will there be a decrease in the number of ecommerce frauds in the upcoming years?
The answer is certainly no, but the number of successful attacks is more likely to decrease as the ecommerce merchant and ecommerce companies are investing heavily in ecommerce fraud management and prevention.
