eSignatures in eCommerce: Benefits and security considerations
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How can secure electronic signatures benefit eCommerce businesses?
In this day and age, eCommerce businesses face mounting pressure to streamline operations without compromising their security integrity. This is easier said than done, with eCommerce being not only a rapidly evolving and competitive space but also one that relies heavily on optimising the customer experience at every touchpoint.
With the majority of web traffic (and, by extension, transactions) taking place online now, eCommerce businesses make a conscious effort to ensure they are firmly in the limelight for active and passive buyers. Digital transformation itself has also empowered many in this space to rethink and innovate their operations, product lines, and marketing strategies. However, companies have also had to adapt to new buying habits and preferences, executing a careful balance between security, compliance, and customer satisfaction.
One of the most influential and talked-about tools that ticks all of these boxes is eSignature (electronic signature) solutions, offering a fast, seamless and user-friendly way that offers the same legal validity as an ink signature on paper. These solutions are widely touted as being efficient and resource-saving, but are there any inherent security risks that eCommerce businesses should be mindful of? Let’s explore how eSignatures are transforming the eCommerce space and uncover all the important security considerations.
How eSignatures improve eCommerce operations
The rapid rise of eCommerce has highlighted the need for secure, efficient and reliable document management and processing. Whether it’s vendor agreements, buyer-supplier contracts, invoicing, accounts balancing, customer rights and entitlements, or internal process documents, paper-based and manual processing has become far too cumbersome in the modern era.
Companies that don’t change with the times risk creating severe bottlenecks in operations that need the automation power and accuracy of technology and, more specifically, real-time processing. Especially as eCommerce operations grow and expand, warehouse management systems (WMS’) must be scalable enough to cope with additional supply and demand.
eSignatures bridge this gap by providing a secure, legally binding association between – in an eCommerce context – the buyer and the seller, allowing transactions to be completed entirely online. eSignatures can also provide evidence if vendors need to authenticate signatures during transactions, ensuring that any electronic documents haven’t been fraudulently falsified or tampered with. Essentially an electronic signature is a form of identity verification in eCommerce transactions that applies in both B2B and B2C situations.
Key benefits for eCommerce businesses
Let’s explore how eSignatures help eCommerce businesses in a range of layperson situations and examples.
Financial management
In the realm of retail and eCommerce accounting, eSignatures play a crucial role in automating financial processes. Whether it’s payment authorisations, invoice approvals, accounts balancing, cash flow forecasting, accurate, data-driven projects or any other financial task, eSignatures help maintain accurate financial records while minimising manual processing time.
Entrusting automation to your business finances will ensure the faster and more accurate reconciliation of accounts while reducing the risk of human error and inaccuracies.
Customer experience
Nowadays, consumers expect seamless, friction-free shopping experiences. Not only are cart abandonment rates 70% (according to recent online transaction data) but 18% will abandon purchases if the checkout process is too long or complicated. Furthermore, 40% of online users will abandon a website (eCommerce or otherwise) if it fails to load within three seconds, with 70% of users directly correlating an online retailer’s site with their inevitable faith in the prospective purchase.
eCommerce businesses have several factors to consider when it comes to optimising the customer journey, from the discovery stage through to maintaining relationships with customers post-purchase. A large barrier is managing expectations, which can be improved by eSignatures and automation where possible. This can include enabling guest checkouts, instantly validating and completing purchase agreements, and facilitating the signing of documents from any device (if relevant).
Online retailers can also benefit by reducing transaction barriers between the consideration and completion stages of the customer journey, removing any on-screen distractions and reinforcing social proof and trust signals at every possible juncture.
Operational workflows
The implementation of eSignature solutions brings substantial operational benefits, from automating the document management, processing and destruction stages to ultimately digitising an organisation’s entire back catalogue of paper files, reducing the need for bulky and obstructive physical storage.
Digitising paper agreements, contracts, and intellectual property documents (among others) while implementing tech-led project and task workflows will help eCommerce organisations save money, preserve more finite resources, and take their operations to a whole new level.
Security considerations of eSignatures in eCommerce
eCommerce businesses must be vigilant about several security challenges in the fast-paced and unpredictable online retail world.
The digital nature of eCommerce makes fraudulent transactions easy to execute, with malicious actors now deploying a range of cutting-edge, convincing and often untraceable tools.
Several threats exist online, from fraudulent purchases using stolen credit card information or personal data to well-orchestrated phishing campaigns where cybercriminals disguise themselves (convincingly) as your organisation, reaching out to customers via SMS or email, to extort money or obtain private information. Malicious programs like spyware, trojan horses, viruses or ransomware can be forcibly injected into customer or vendor devices, often disguised within a seemingly innocuous or legitimate email. Furthermore, companies – regardless of size or market influence – can be targeted in strategic cyber breaches and incidents where networks or servers are compromised by brute force, leading to extended downtime and preventing consumers from accessing their data (which invariably gets stolen and misused).
eCommerce providers must ensure that their platforms, websites, and integrations are reinforced with secure SSL/TLS certification (to encrypt pathways between the buyer’s and seller’s servers), and regularly patched to ensure any discovered vulnerabilities are accounted for. Two-factor authentication (2FA) and even biometric verification are also important to add a layer of security between the customer and the vendor platform or website, ensuring that all data exchanged remains secured and inaccessible to malicious actors trying to intercept transactions or steal data. Parallels can be drawn between eSignatures and fingerprints as a means of identity verification, and 2FA alone has been statistically linked to preventing 99% of cyber incidents.
eCommerce businesses must also ensure continued compliance with data protection and privacy regulations like GDPR, as well as industry-specific standards. These are regularly being reviewed and updated by policymakers, and with cyber security a firm priority for many industry leaders, eCommerce vendors would do well to ensure secure document storage processes, robust network infrastructure, best-in-class platform software, and routine updating and patch management procedures are intact.
Ensuring the consistency and authenticity of signees is vital, with modern and scalable eSignature solutions offering identity verification, IP address tracking, time-stamping functionality, and more. Data transferred using digital signature software is encrypted, with every recorded signature using a standard PKI (Public Key Infrastructure) format. In other words, this format contains a private key that isn’t shared and used only by the signee, with a public key being held only by the vendor.
Getting Started with eSignatures
Implementing eSignatures in your eCommerce business doesn’t have to be complicated. eCommerce businesses can simply sign up for a 14-day free trial with Signable, which boasts an intuitive platform to integrate eSignature functionality into your existing workflows and tools, giving them an immediate security boost.
Remember that your chosen platform may need additional integration steps with Signable, but our platform is fully compatible with Google Drive, Slack, Zapier, Dropbox, and many more. We also have a stable eSignature API which developers can use to customise into incumbent software or applications, whether it’s to extract data from CRM systems or export real-time notifications via webhooks.
Ready to transform your eCommerce operations with secure, efficient eSignatures? Start your 14-day free trial with Signable today and experience how our solutions can streamline your business processes while maintaining the highest security standards.
Dakota Murphey
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