UK E-tailers cite transaction costs as biggest frustration
68% of Online retailers believe payment charges and technical glitches are more of a problem to their business than fraud
The high cost associated with payment acceptance charges has become the biggest single pressure point for UK e-commerce, ahead of website technical glitches and card fraud. At least, this is according to the E-Business Benchmark Report, an annual survey of over 2,000 UK-based internet retailers conducted by payments services provider, Sage Pay.
With payments fraud unexpectedly not making the top spot, the findings suggest that most online businesses are confident that they can keep fraud at bay.
Joe Robey, Sage Pay’s in-house Fraud Specialist, comments, “The findings demonstrate that payments fraud is no longer the number one concern for
online retailers. Merchants are becoming increasingly familiar with the tell tale signs associated with fraudulent activity and, provided they have the right tools and processes in place, they now have the confidence to tackle fraudulent activity and keep card crime at bay.”
This report correlates with findings from the British Retail Consortium (BRC), as it calls for the UK government to intervene and reduce payment card acceptance fees charged to retailers by the banks. Figures from the BRC show that accepting a payment by debit card costs the retailer 4 times more than if a customer uses cash to pay for a purchase. The report also identifies that the banks’ debit card handling charges have almost doubled in the past five years.
