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Fraud Exposed: How Fraudsters Target Quick-Commerce Apps

The e-commerce industry has evolved and expanded to now include quick-commerce (q-commerce). Stemming from a need for efficiency, speed, and convenience, quick-commerce aims to deliver goods to its customers almost immediately, usually within an hour. 

Quick-commerce has swiftly revolutionized the shopping experience. Revenue in the q-commerce industry is expected to surpass an astronomical 100 billion USD in 2023 and the number of users using quick-commerce apps is expected to reach nearly 800 million users by 2027, up from 388 million users in 2021

But the introduction and rapid growth of the quick-commerce industry has presented fraudsters with a treasure trove of opportunities to exploit. Let’s take a look at some of the common fraud attacks seen on quick-commerce platforms.

3 types of quick-commerce fraud 

1. GPS Spoofing 

Q-commerce companies often provide riders with incentives and rewards for completing deliveries on time. Fraudsters will take advantage of this by using a GPS spoofer to spoof their location and make it seem like they delivered the items in time when in reality, they were running late. Not only does this give the driver rewards they don’t deserve, but it also leaves customers unsatisfied with a late delivery. If this happens repeatedly, it could break customer trust and cause them to leave the platform for good.

2. Promo Abuse 

Quick-commerce apps often hold promotions and campaigns to retain their users, incentivize customers to purchase more, and celebrate holidays and festivals. Fraudsters will abuse this by creating fake accounts to use the same promo code multiple times. They may also use bots and emulators to create fake accounts at scale and buy up items at a fast rate. This puts genuine users at a disadvantage since the fraudsters are able to buy all the available promotional-priced items before them. 

3. Referral Abuse 

Since the q-commerce industry is quite competitive, companies will offer incentives to draw in new users to their platform. Fraudsters have been known to exploit this by creating multiple fake accounts to refer themselves over and over again. This gives companies an inaccurate picture of their growth and user numbers, which could create problems in the future and hinder their financial success. On top of this, quick-commerce apps would also lose funds by running referral campaigns because some of the customers acquired are fake users. 

How SHIELD can help protect quick-commerce apps

SHIELD’s Device Intelligence enables quick-commerce companies to stop fraud and build trust as they supercharge their growth. 

SHIELD helped Astro, Indonesia’s first quick-commerce platform, strengthen their risk and fraud strategy and deliver the most trusted online shopping experience. This was achieved using the SHIELD ID, the global standard for device identification. The SHIELD ID was used to detect devices linked to multiple accounts and enabled Astro to identify fake accounts and multi-accounting. By doing so, they were able to eradicate fake accounts and ensure only genuine users were able to benefit from promotion and referral campaigns. 

Astro also leveraged SHIELD’s group of Risk Indicators to identify when and which malicious tools were being used. With the Risk Indicators, they detected errant drivers using GPS spoofers on their devices to take advantage of bonuses meant for genuine drivers who made deliveries on time. 

By partnering with SHIELD, Astro was able to safeguard their platform from fake accounts and deliver the best customer experience to every shopper.

Learn how SHIELD can help your app stop fraud and build trust