The phrase "The customer is always right" was coined by London department store retailer Harry Gordon Selfridge in 1909 to encourage his employees to provide customers with exceptional customer service. Ever since, retailers across all industries have been trying to achieve the positive customer experience—and possibly a competitive advantage—that Selfridge was striving for by offering a variety of customer-oriented policies and services. One such service that gained popularity a couple of years ago is buy-online-pick-up-in-store, often shortened to BOPIS. The COVID pandemic has led to a modification of BOPIS: BOPAC, short for buy-online-pick up-at-curbside. Merchants are offering these options so they can provide a "frictionless transaction"—in other words, they want to reduce the actions customers have to take to obtain their products. This less-contact process also happens to address the CDC’s COVID health recommendations of minimizing contact with others.
Unfortunately, fraudsters have latched onto BOPIS and BOPAC because they’re a means to secure their ill-gotten gains faster and at a lower risk of confrontation once they have stolen the payment credentials of a legitimate cardholder. According to a report published last fall 
, BOPIS fraud increased 55 percent from the first half of 2019 to the first half of 2020. While merchants in the BOPIS model can ask customers for identification, many do not, for a couple of reasons. First, the person picking up the goods may not be the cardholder, as often happens in the home improvement and landscaping business. Some retailers have addressed this by requiring the cardholder during checkout to give the name of the pick-up person. Second, requesting identification adds a step to the process and therefore adds friction.
A major financial services company published a best practices guide a year ago that contains recommendations on how merchants can reduce their fraud risk for BOPIS/BOPAC transactions. These recommendations include manually reviewing orders of high-value or targeted merchandise and using video cameras in the pick-up areas.
As stores and shopping centers begin to open more and with longer hours, it will be interesting to see if customers return to browse and shop in the aisles or the convenience of BOPIS/BOPAC will continue to drive ecommerce traffic. What do you think?
David Lott, a payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed