Brands and merchants are heading into the new year worried about prices and making the right decisions about AI adoption. Retailers increasingly are turning to AI solutions to address their biggest challenges, including supply chain, e-commerce, marketing, and product returns, and to drive growth.

Sales during the holiday season were significantly better than expected, and full-year sales growth for 2024 was up 3.6%, beating forecasts. But instead of resting on their successes, retail executives who gathered at the annual National Retail Federation’s convention to kick off 2025 said they will have to work even harder this year to drive growth.

The 2025 Global Payments & Fraud Report is your go-to resource for understanding the latest trends shaping eCommerce. Based on our annual global survey of 1,000+ eCommerce merchants, this report provides insights from businesses of all sizes—SMBs, mid-market, and enterprise merchants—across 35+ countries in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), and Latin America (LATAM).

With a data-driven approach, the report explores emerging payment trends, evolving fraud threats, and strategic insights to help you optimize payment performance, reduce fraud losses, and refine risk management strategies in an increasingly complex global market.

As if return fraud weren’t daunting enough by itself. One of the fastest rising trends in the first-party fraud category involves wardrobing, or buying items and wearing them with the intention of returning them for full price later on. Why is this such a big deal in eCommerce? And, what can you do to stop it? Let’s find out.

Wardrobing: How to Stop Buyers From Using & Returning Your Goods

At its core, wardrobing is a form of first-party fraud. It happens when a shopper buys an item that they intend to use or wear just once, then return it to get their money back.

As 2024 draws to a close, businesses face an increasingly hostile environment in the battle against fraud. Driven by rapid technological advancement and evolving regulatory landscapes, organisations seek new ways to prevent and detect highly sophisticated attacks. Experian’s 2024 Global Fraud Reportoffers a deep dive into the current state of fraud, revealing critical insights and strategies businesses must adopt to stay ahead of fraudsters. 

It’s easy to understand why everybody loves gift cards, especially the digital kind. Unfortunately, the “everybody” who loves gift cards includes fraudsters. As liquid as cash, ill-gotten gift cards can be instantly and easily monetized, and transactions are largely irreversible. This creates a dilemma for merchants who want to offer gift cards to please good customers without inviting massive fraud. And that’s where things get complicated.

Returns fraud and abuse are rising sharply, with nearly 40% of consumers—or someone they know—engaging in these activities in the past year. This escalating issue is now a top concern for global retailers, surpassing operational costs and supply chain disruptions.

To put this into perspective, 90% of 600 global retailers who’ve been affected report a significant increase in fraud.

Read the report today and gain crucial insights and strategies to address this challenge effectively.

It may not feel like it right now, but the winter holiday shopping season will be here in just a few months. While you’re planning your marketing campaigns and product mix for holiday 2024, take some time to review and update your fraud strategies. Adapting your fraud prevention to account for trending e-commerce fraud methods can help you avoid attacks, approve more legitimate orders, and give your customers a better holiday shopping experience.

Our fourth-annual original research report highlights the consumer attitudes and behavioral trends that ecommerce businesses should anticipate in 2024 and beyond. While experts warned of reduced consumer spending in 2023, ecommerce sales increased. Throughout the year, consumers spent nearly four times more online than they did in stores, and businesses can expect that to continue.

At the same time, retailers must be aware that they are now marketing and selling to multiple generations with a wide range of preferences and expectations relating to customer experience, payment options, fraud tolerance — or lack thereof — and security.