IRCE 2010 Report: What Internet Retailers Really Want for Christmas This Year
In a word, I would describe this year’s Internet Retailer conference in Chicago as this: more. In fact, except for the number of servers walking the floor serving hors d’œuvres at the opening night reception it felt like there was more of everything compared with last year’s conference in Boston: more exhibitors, attendees, sessions—and more energy. We can thank the Windy City citizens and their hockey team for injecting some additional energy into the conference when the winning goal gave the Chicago Blackhawks their first Stanley Cup in 49 years (as a native Chicagoan my thanks go to the Internet Retailer 2010 event planners for choosing Chicago for the show this year). My co-worker Dan waded into the Blackhawks celebration downtown where he got this video of himself touching the Stanley Cup as it make its way through the crowds.
If you’re an Internet retailer, It’s never too soon to be thinking about the Christmas holiday online shopping season—as evidenced by one of the exhibitors who decked their booth out with a Christmas motif and booth staff dressed in elf outfits. Thanks to our annual booth survey at the IRCE we know what internet retailers really want for Christmas this 2010 season. We asked attendees at our booth to complete a brief survey to see what we could learn. The following results reflect surveys completed by 395 attendees.
Almost two-thirds of the respondents said they think making it fast and easy for customers to transact online is more important than stopping online fraudsters at their first attempt. Attendees at the 2010 Merchant Risk Council meeting were about evenly split on this question.
An overwhelming 88% majority said the business (website owner) bears primary responsibility for preventing fraud. The high percentage is counter to much of the prevailing push for consumers to take responsibility to protect their personal data and their computers.
No surprise here that about half said credit cards posed the most risk for loss to a web business--after all it is the Internet Retail conference. However it is noteworthy that half also said that logins and new accounts posed the most risk, a relatively high number for this audience.
- Tom
