As a merchant, keeping personal user details safe is imperative. One data breach could mean lost customer trust, and information available for fraudsters to hack into countless user accounts in the future. But more than half of Americans (56%) admit to inputting critical personal information into a website they didn’t fully trust.
A Forter survey of 2,000 Americans aiming to uncover just how easily people trust websites with their personal details found that the average American has their credit card information stored on five different websites.
Americans will play it fast and loose when it comes to putting their personal details online, it appears, with one in four Americans taking under six seconds to determine if a website is safe enough to punch their personal details into. Additionally, one in ten Americans would sooner trust their personal details with a website they’ve never heard of before than their partner.
Americans love to shop online, and seem to have no problem giving up information in order to be able to do so — but how far would they go exactly? According to the results, one in five Americans would happily give a website their social security number in order to shop with it.
“Consumers expect merchants to keep their personal information safe, and they risk ruining customer relationships if a breach occurs,” said Michael Reitblat, CEO of Forter.
“Despite consumers’ willingness to share information with merchants, seventy percent of consumers are concerned about their private details being stolen via a retailers website, according to a previous study of ours. And the more personal information a merchant holds, the more attractive it is for online criminals to attack.”
Sixty-five percent of consumers would be less likely to shop with a merchant again if their data was breached. That means that a single breach could put merchants at serious monetary risk. E-commerce companies must put preventative measures in place to ensure that their accounts aren’t being compromised, and the plethora of information their customers are willing to share remains safe.
.jpg)
