Member Article

UK Retailers losing revenue due to account and password frustrations

Retailers could be shutting down huge revenue streams this Christmas due to poor shopping sign-up processes, a study has revealed.

A survey of more than 1,000 people in the UK by cybersecurity firm Beyond Identity found that 62% of respondents have abandoned a shopping cart if they are required to create an account.

After abandoning a cart, 83% of British people would seek a competitor’s services, 76% would be reluctant to visit the same retail website again and 58% would have a negative perception of the brand.

As part of the research, British respondents were asked to select three of the most “annoying” parts of online login and registration. One-third (38%) of respondents said forgetting passwords annoyed them the most and 39% said password that had specific requirements (length, special characters, etc.). A further 27% said security questions were annoying and 20% said the same about MFA.

Respondents were also asked about what stopped them completing a purchase. 41% reported abandoning a cart because they had forgotten a password and 30% said over-complex password creation requirements were deal-breakers at the checkout.

One quarter (25%) said passing a CAPTCHA test stopped them finishing a purchase, whilst 15% blamed MFA.

Tom “TJ” Jermoluk, CEO of Beyond Identity, said: “We’ve all experienced the frustration of forgetting our passwords. Now it’s time to forget the password altogether because the results of this survey show they are becoming a liability.”

The results show that bad experiences at checkout do not just cost retailers a single sale but could erode customer loyalty.

“The best way to solve the problems with passwords is to abolish them altogether. Gartner predicts that 60% of large and global enterprises and 90% of midsize enterprises will implement passwordless protections by 2022, turning to MFA and other security solutions in more than 50% of use cases.

“Retailers can’t afford to lose customers, so it’s time for them to lose passwords and give their users a secure and seamless experience.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by TH .