People love shopping online. Heck, why wouldn't they? You can visit a dozen stores, compare prices and find coupon codes all without leaving your couch or changing out of your pajama pants. In fact, consumers now make 51 percent of their purchases online, a statistic that is expected to grow year over year.

Of course, that's not to say that the e-commerce industry is without its faults. Besides the obvious pain points of shipping costs and not being able to try before you buy, there are also legitimate security concerns about online shopping.

According to recent study published by Experian, e-commerce fraud spiked over 30 percent in 2016. Much of this is due to the adoption of the more secure EMV chip cards. How can this be? Are EMV cards really more secure?

It might seem counterintuitive, but spoofing an EMV transaction in person is nearly impossible because the new chip sends a unique transaction code to the financial institution to verify the legitimacy of the purchase. The old magnetic strip, on the other hand, is an unchanging string of numbers that is easy to steal and reuse.

So, what does this have to do with e-commerce? Well, since the EMV chip is impossible to grift in-person, crooks have instead focused their efforts on digital incursion.

Below are a few pointers to improve your e-store's online security. Remember that even if a hacker is able to defraud your business, cybersecurity liability insurance from CyberPolicy can help.

Consumer Confidence
One of the keys to ensuring a safer experience for your shoppers is to implement a Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure certificate on your e-store. How do you know if you have this certificate? Look at the address bar: if you see the 's' in 'https', your site is encrypted to arrange secure data transfers to and from your visitors. If you do not have https, you can purchase a certification or work with your platform provider to implement one.

Similarly, trust badges are a great way to assure your customers that your store is legitimate. Trust badges are granted by third-party companies, such as McAfee or the Better Business Bureau, that confirm the security and authenticity of a site.

It's also helpful to give shoppers options at checkout. For example, PayPal and Bitcoin are alternate payment methods that are more secure than debit or credit card transactions.

Another great idea is to set up optional text alerts so shoppers are aware of purchases made from their account. Still, some of your customers may be reluctant to share their personal phone numbers, in which case you should at least share email notifications.

Some e-commerce vendors are even implementing artificial intelligence to detect suspicious or fraudulent behavior online. 'Rinse and repeat' attacks, for instance, make use of a batch of stolen credit cards by purchasing goods to a drop location until the card is canceled; repeat until all cards are revoked. AI can flag these incidents, thereby save e-stores thousands!

In the event that all these safeguards fail (and it does happen), CyberPolicy can provide financial security to your business and your customers. Get your free quote today!