The realities of e-retailing in a pandemic world – using data-driven training and awareness programmes to rethink e-retail fraud prevention strategies

E-retail has steadily been on the rise because it is more convenient for most people. The
COVID-19 pandemic has pushed people more into e-retail as they face lockdowns/choose to
avoid social contact. This means that digital fraud is also rising, and retailers are scrambling to
adapt to this new reality. Current literature reveals that fraud prevention training and agile fraud
learning processes in e-retail firms are limited. However, there is limited research extended to
data-driven fraud education from the perspective of the e-retail industry.
We evaluate the use of data-driven training and awareness programmes for e-retail fraud
prevention. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews from expert participants in
e-retail firms. Preliminary findings indicate that e-retailers should leverage data to improve
their fraud training and awareness practices because limited latent data-driven fraud education
programmes impede the development of e-retail fraud prevention.