The Best Safety Tips for Running an E-Commerce Business

As a growing volume of retail transactions become ‘etail’ transactions, it’s becoming even more critical that your e-commerce business takes all necessary precautions to protect your business interests, your customers’ interests, and their data.

Here are some important safety tips you should bear in mind if you’re planning to launch an e-commerce business.

Online Security

Without a secure website, there is no e-commerce business that is safe. Not only does your website have to be user-friendly, attractive and built with shopping features for the user, it must be secure. If your website is ever hacked and your data is breached, this could mean a swift end for your business as consumers will no longer trust your brand when shopping online.

An e-commerce site should be hosted by a company who offer back-ups and are operational 24/7. Criminals don’t keep to office hours and neither should your web hosting service provider. A good web host will have maximum uptime and offer data protection and detection services that can quickly detect and fix malware or breaches.

Hypertext transfer protocol secure, or HTTPS, is the secure version of HTTP which is utilised for the secure movement of information on a network. Your e-commerce website should be hosted on HTTPS to avoid hackers gaining valuable information on your website.

Before you can move your website to HTTPS, you will need an SSL or Secure Sockets Layer certificate. SSL is security technology which encrypts links between a website and an internet browser. An SSL certificate can be purchased, installed, activated and updated on your website. SSL certificates do expire so ensure you renew the SSL before the expiration.

Avoid the Fraud

Unfortunately, credit card fraud on e-commerce sites is quite common. To avoid being the victim of credit card fraud, make use of AVS or Address Verification Services, which compares billing addresses supplied by the consumer to the address registered by the bank for that consumer. Add technology that can detect IP or Internet Protocol addresses which may seem bogus in relation to the shipping information as an added security process.

Privacy Concerns

Ensure you use secure payment gateway platforms on your site which releases security patches and provides shipping method extensions for better privacy. Doing this alone is not enough as consumers must be reminded to shop responsibly and safely. Reminders to consumers, preferably through an automated system, to use strong passwords and to change them monthly is a great way to help your consumers protect themselves too.

Never store sensitive financial information such as credit card details on your website. Hackers are particularly fond of gaining this data to commit online crimes with. To avoid this extremely serious data breach, employ the process of Tokenisation. Tokenisation identifies, removes and encrypts the sensitive information for you, such as credit card information, to prevent hackers from gaining access to this data.

Insurance for Your Delivery Service

A growing number of bricks-and-mortar businesses are launching ecommerce solutions, enabling customers to place an order through their website and then have the product couriered to their home or office. While this is a great way for offline businesses to compete in an increasingly online retail environment, it does mean you will need to take out courier insurance alongside your online safety precautions.

Courier insurance can be found through a comparison site like Quotezone.co.uk, and will protect your delivery vehicle as well as the goods that are being transported. There are greater risks attached to courier vehicles because of the potential value of the goods they are transporting, and therefore it is essential to be adequately covered when delivering or collecting goods.

Trademark

The final consideration to implement is the process of trademarking your company or brand name and logo. This will protect your website as well as your brand in the event of domain theft or duplication. Ensure your name and products are protected by trademarking them; often other companies will duplicate your entire site for profit and if you are not protected, you can lose your business. Ensure your copyright notice is clear and visible on your site and related documents.

Taking your business’s cybersecurity, insurance and brand name seriously will protect and safeguard your bottom line in the event of crime. Although the process of establishing an e-commerce website is relatively easy these days, the security and service you provide will set you apart from the competition and ensure your business thrives.