Online retailers are losing sales due to poor password experiences

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Poor login and password experiences are making online retailers lose out on some major sales, a new report from Beyond Identity is suggesting. The authentication service provider recently polled 1,000 consumers to better understand how new security measures, imposed by online stores, affect their online shopping habits and overall e-commerce experience. What it found were shoppers, annoyed by the requirements, and always on the lookout for ways to circumvent them.

According to the report, two-thirds (67%) of online shoppers have lost interest in creating an account on an e-commerce site, due to password requirements.

For almost a quarter of respondents (24%), having specific password requirements, such as a minimal number of characters, mandatory numbers and special characters, is the number one annoyance.

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This was particularly annoying as having a strong password made it difficult to remember. Then, many were annoyed for being required an account to check out from the store, or being forced to answer security questions were also listed as major annoyances.

Finally, being forced to pass a CAPTCHA test to log in was super annoying for 15% of the respondents.

Password fatigue

Those that don’t quit straight away, and instead persevere in their desire to create an account, will look for different ways to circumvent the “annoying” requirements. Most (58%) of them will use the same security question across multiple shopping platforms.

All in all, practically all e-shoppers (84%) experience password fatigue from having to set up accounts when making a purchase.

Still, e-commerce isn’t going anywhere. It’s by far the most popular way to shop nowadays, especially since the pandemic forced many physical store owners to lock up and move into the digital realm.

According to figures from Statistica, the overall percentage of e-commerce retail sales accounted for 16% of sales in the US in Q2 2020, as well as nearly a third of all retail in the UK.

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Sead is a seasoned freelance journalist based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He writes about IT (cloud, IoT, 5G, VPN) and cybersecurity (ransomware, data breaches, laws and regulations). In his career, spanning more than a decade, he’s written for numerous media outlets, including Al Jazeera Balkans. He’s also held several modules on content writing for Represent Communications.