SINGAPORE: While more than three-quarters (78%) of Singaporeans shop online at least once a month, the nation's ecommerce firms need to address consumer concerns about security and fraud, a new report has suggested.
A survey of 1,000 consumers by PayPal, the online payment service, found their top worries were having their financial details stolen by cybercriminals (57%), sharing credit card details with unknown websites (20%) and non-delivery of orders (11%).
As reported by the Singapore Business Review, they were more suspicious about online risks associated with overseas websites (89%) than with domestic sites, even though over half (55%) indicated that international websites accounted for more than 25% of their online shopping.
However, despite their concerns, only a small proportion of respondents reported that they had actually fallen victim to criminals.
Only 9% said they had encountered some form of fraudulent activity when shopping online, although over a third (36%) complained they had received damaged goods or not had them delivered at all.
"It is interesting to see that while the majority of online shoppers in Singapore have not encountered fraud, there remains a deep concern about becoming a victim of cybercrime," said Rahul Shinghal, PayPal's country manager for Southeast Asia.
"This is something that we must address so that online shoppers do not need to hold back on making purchases online due to security fears, which stifles the potential for e-commerce to grow," he warned.
Consequently, PayPal has issued guidance to help steer Singapore's online shoppers through some of the obstacles, Channel NewsAsia reported.
It advised consumers to always check that a website's URL address contains an "https" protocol and that they should not click on links in suspicious emails and always ensure their browser security protections are up-to-date.
A survey of 1,000 consumers by PayPal, the online payment service, found their top worries were having their financial details stolen by cybercriminals (57%), sharing credit card details with unknown websites (20%) and non-delivery of orders (11%).
As reported by the Singapore Business Review, they were more suspicious about online risks associated with overseas websites (89%) than with domestic sites, even though over half (55%) indicated that international websites accounted for more than 25% of their online shopping.
However, despite their concerns, only a small proportion of respondents reported that they had actually fallen victim to criminals.
Only 9% said they had encountered some form of fraudulent activity when shopping online, although over a third (36%) complained they had received damaged goods or not had them delivered at all.
"It is interesting to see that while the majority of online shoppers in Singapore have not encountered fraud, there remains a deep concern about becoming a victim of cybercrime," said Rahul Shinghal, PayPal's country manager for Southeast Asia.
"This is something that we must address so that online shoppers do not need to hold back on making purchases online due to security fears, which stifles the potential for e-commerce to grow," he warned.
Consequently, PayPal has issued guidance to help steer Singapore's online shoppers through some of the obstacles, Channel NewsAsia reported.
It advised consumers to always check that a website's URL address contains an "https" protocol and that they should not click on links in suspicious emails and always ensure their browser security protections are up-to-date.
Data sourced from Singapore Business Review, Channel NewsAsia; additional content by Warc
