When you have an online store or booking platform, a huge part of it is trust. That is, those who use your website expect there to be safety procedures in place that will protect them and their data from being hacked.
Of course, if you have poor cybersecurity, this breaks that trust. When your website breaches customer trust, it can take years to regain it, and as a result, sales decline. So, if you’re undecided about updating your security system on your website, here are five reasons why your weak cyber defenses may be preventing sales.
- Abandoned Transactions
Threat detection software is smart. If you have such software from a site like Red Canary, it can spot issues with a website’s HTTPS encryption or invalid certificates. If your website has either of these, research from Google shows that your site’s user engagement may decrease by as much as 37%, leading to abandoned transactions. In other words, site users will leave your website, leaving goods or services in the basket, rather than proceed with a purchase.
- Data Breach? Broken Trust
A sure-fire way to destroy any brand’s long-term reputation is to have a data or security breach. Even if your company has only had a single breach, customers will lose confidence and will refuse to shop with your brand again.
The most common cause of a data breach is having poor cybersecurity systems in place, so to stay on the safe side, make sure all passkeys and passwords for your website are encrypted and be sure to invest in some AI-threat detection software. This software is super-fast and, as AI is predicted to be the number one cause of most data breaches to websites in 2026, it can be useful to have an option that can keep up with data threats in real time.
- Downtime Equates to Lost Sales
When there is a cyberattack on a website, it can take minutes or even hours to stop and reverse the incident, as the website has to be taken offline. During that downtime, your customers can’t complete purchases, which leads to immediate revenue loss. Even worse is that online hackers often aim to attack businesses around the holiday season, meaning that the loss of income can be even more devastating to your company.
- Increased Fraud Drops Conversions
An interesting way that some hackers infiltrate websites is via the checkouts. They may place additional steps on your website’s checkout that allow them to get access to your customers’ data. Of course, the key way to prevent this is to have anti-fraud and detection software in place, but even if this goes unnoticed, the longer, more complex checkouts can reduce conversions and ultimately destroy the credibility of your website.
- Penalties
Legally, your business needs to meet data protection requirements under regulations like GDPR. Otherwise, you’ll run the risk of heavy penalties. These operational and financial burdens (which can be alleviated or prevented with better cybersecurity) can force you to halt marketing or other processes, which can impact revenue and slow down sales.