Top 6 Key Privacy Tips for Your Ecommerce in 2021

"Once you’ve lost your privacy, you realize you’ve lost a precious thing." – Jodi Rell.

With Coronavirus shifting the entire world to the internet, these lines are truer than ever. For a long time, ecommerce has been a favorite for hackers and cybercriminals. With Accenture predicting a 67% increase in security breaches, you can no longer overlook data privacy.

If you’re under the impression that privacy is a concern only for ecommerce giants like eBay or Amazon, think again?

According to a report, a hacker group broke into 570 ecommerce stores worldwide, stealing information of more than 184,000 credit cards. 

Keeping these statistics and ecommerce’s success in mind, cybercriminals leave no stone unturned in stealing information from sources you can’t even imagine. Furthermore, with the ever-changing digital landscape, cybercriminals have a sophisticated arsenal of tools to exploit gaps in online security.

As a result, it’s essential to keep up with the privacy risk and ensure a safe browsing session for anyone who comes knocking on your website.

Top 6 Key Privacy Tips for Your Ecommerce in 2021

The high cost of neglecting data privacy earns your ecommerce a ticket to bankruptcy. It takes seconds to lose data but days or months to replace it. Therefore, implement these six privacy tips to grow your business exponentially. 

1. Only store data that you need

Why do you want to know the marital status or income of your customers? 

The more information you ask and collect, the more you will have to protect it. With stringent privacy laws like CCPA and GDPR in place, collecting unnecessary information is like inviting trouble. 

For online businesses, especially ecommerce, CCPA’s bark is worse than its bite. The law empowers your customer to opt-out from data reselling, which for long has been a reliable marketing tactic for ecommerce stores.

In short, businesses have to take data ownership, and it impacts ecommerce marketing and sales strategy.

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As an ecommerce business, hold only that information that you require to run your business optimally. To safeguard yourself from hefty penalties and loss of brand reputation, build your business philosophy. It improves customer experience and maintains a balance between security and convenience.

Try keeping your customer’s critical information separate from other business information. This reduces the intensity of a cyberattack.

Adhering to federal regulations and storing customer data is the primary step toward securing your ecommerce business. If you do this step right, everything else is likely to fall in place. 

Did you know? For businesses, the cost of non-compliance is 2.71 times more than the cost of compliance.

2. Use an SSL certificate.

Imagine renting a hotel room only to find locks missing. Will you trust such a hotel with your valuables and your safety?

No, right!

Whether professional or personal, we all want the security of our assets. The same applies to customers who visit your store. No one will purchase from your ecommerce if your store deems 

insecure for whatever reasons. 

To build customer trust, you need a security mark to assure  customer data and transactions are safe. For an ecommerce business, an SSL certificate is that security that instills customer trust and confidence.

A Secure Socket Layer (SSL)is a technology that safeguards against hacking and helps to manage a secure internet connection. ecommerce stores with SSL certificates use HTTPS instead of HTTP. It’s the certificate that ensures domain validation, extended validation, and organization validation. 

The browser sends information in encryption form, and your website receives a padlock sign. It means your customer information is safe, and you successfully provide a seamless shopping experience. 

Did you know? A whopping 93% of websites searchable on Google have an SSL certificate. That’s the power and importance a certificate brings to your e-commerce.

3. Monitor your systems and assets

Your ecommerce business has assets that need protection. Vulnerability in these assets can quickly go unnoticed leaving your business at risk of stealing data. From open gits, exposed subdomains to private git repositories – your online store could be a hub for hackers to exploit.

When these vulnerabilities go unnoticed, customers lose trust as their sensitive information gets shared. 

That’s where asset monitoring solutions come in. 

Asset monitoring is hiring an ethical hacker to penetrate your ecommerce network to find suspicious activities. These suspicious activities involve unauthorized connection, change in password, or any account-related unusual activity.

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The ethical hacker mimics a real hacker’s action to understand your ecommerce asset and system's weaknesses.

Your ecommerce may have subdomains that are no longer in use and may point to third-party services. These domains are easily hijacked by attackers, thereby putting your business at risk – asset monitoring is your one-stop-shop to prevent such hijacks.

Did you know? A data breach ranks in the top 3 most negative impacts to brand reputation. It outclasses even a scandal involving a CEO.

4. Ensure compliance with PCI DSS

With growing credit card fraud instances, PCI compliance is mandatory for every ecommerce business transacting money online. Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of technical standards ensuring that every company processing, storing, and transmitting credit card information provides a secure transacting environment to customers. 

PCI DSS compliance is a necessity. Unless a customer trusts your website, they’re less likely to punch in their credit or debit card information. 

Will you share your card details with an unsafe and insecure online store? 

Probably not! 

The same happens to your customers in the absence of PCI compliance. From boosting customer confidence, protecting your clients to avoid hefty lawsuits, and meeting global standards – it’s an excellent way to show customers that you value their privacy and personal data.

Did you know? According to research, 38% of customers feel that hackers have already hacked their card details. This makes PCI DSS compliance a must-have for a successful ecommerce business. 

5. Ask for strong passwords from customers.

Privacy and security of your ecommerce business begin with customers. From two-factor authentication to keeping strong passwords, your customers are the guardian angels for their sensitive information.

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While this may seem a fundamental step, it could be a difference between ecommerce sites that are hacking prone and safe.

Most customer-centric ecommerce stores allow a milieu of numerals, uppercase or lowercase letters, and symbols.

The rule here is simple, 

Strong password = Difficulty in intercepting or hacking the information.

Did you know?  90% of customers are scared of password hacking. A strong and long password can scare away hackers trying to steal information.

6. Choose the right ecommerce platform.

If you feel your business is still vulnerable, consider shifting your ecommerce platform. Today, with technology drastically changing our lives, it makes sense to use a SaaS ecommerce platform. Such a platform shift ensures security, support to web pages, data, and access to data.

Using the right ecommerce platform like Shopify and BigCommerce provides a seamless customer experience while ensuring data protection. A right platform provider automatically keeps a hawk-eye on potential breaches. Such an investment is strategic and involves a sharp learning curve.

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Furthermore, the ecommerce platform should be easily understandable by the technical expertise of your team. There’s no point in choosing a highly technical yet popular platform when your team skillset doesn’t even sway near technical things. 

Choosing the right ecommerce platform is an overwhelming experience as a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. It’s not every day you migrate from one platform to another. Weigh your options before selecting an ecommerce platform. 

Did you know? 95% of all purchases will be made through ecommerce. It makes choosing the right ecommerce platform even more important.

Join the privacy bandwagon

Success mantra for 2021: If your ecommerce store is a cyber-attack victim, it jeopardizes customer confidence and affects your sales. Ecommerce websites that consider data privacy and marketing equivalent are the ones that don’t fall prey to malicious attacks and unauthorized access.

Today, with the number of breaches increasing every passing day, you can afford to overlook breaches. When you’re compliant, you’re always on the right side of the law, and it protects your reputation from going for a toss. 

The mathematics here is simple,

More privacy = fewer risks.

Protecting your ecommerce business is an uphill battle, but if ecommerce giants like eBay are susceptible, your business is equally prone to attacks. However, it doesn’t mean you should take a step back and pray for attackers to skip your website.

The dark web doesn’t work on sentiments. Instead, it leverages the tiniest possible security gap to steal your customer’s data. Today, investing in ecommerce privacy is far more important than web design and marketing.

Use these six actional tips to secure your ecommerce store and win-back the confidence of your customers.