Less fraud and more sales to boost e-commerce
Online sales are flourishing, but e-shops belonging to SMEs have a tough time competing with traditional sales channels of bigger companies that are often much better established. These small shops also have to deal with online fraud, particularly with respect to credit card payments. Against this backdrop, the EU-funded SME E-COMPASS (E-commerce proficient analytics in security and sales for SMEs) project developed two real-time applications that advance online security and encourage e-sales. One of these solutions, dubbed Real-time Anti-Fraud Online System for SMEs, identifies patterns of fraudulent activity by gathering information on real transactions available from online SME merchants. It enhances automatic fraud detection, enabling SMEs to easily interpret the final risk scoring of each order. The system also introduces a dynamic fraud detection framework that adapts to new malicious activities in real time. The other application, Online Data Mining Services for SMEs, helps small online shops convert more visitors to buyers by understanding customer expectations and motivations. It monitors competitor prices and trends, analysing data from both customers and competitors and taking appropriate measures to enhance sales. To achieve its aims, the project considered cybercrime trends, state-of-the-art fraud detection and e-commerce practices. It identified the needs of SMEs through questionnaires and focus groups, subsequently articulating the software solutions and validating them. The team then worked on raising awareness among stakeholders about the new technologies and on exploiting their power, in addition to defining an exploitation strategy. The overall result is a real-time anti-fraud service for online SMEs under a software-as-a-service framework. The platform empowers the merchant's fraud detection strategy, particularly in relation to order assessment. The service improves cost efficiency of the fraud detection process and reveals patterns of fraudulent activity targeting online SMEs. Connecting online transaction mechanisms with real-time anti-fraud service will improve the cost efficiency of the overall SME fraud detection process. In parallel, Online Data Mining Services will benefit small and medium-sized e-shops by providing new insights to enhance sales. Both software tools are slated to make SMEs more competitive.
Keywords
E-commerce, SMEs, online sales, e-shops, SME E-COMPASS, fraud detection
