Risk Control Shield | Don’t let chargebacks and order cancellations “swallow” your Christmas sale profits
2025年12月8日
Risk Control Shield | Cross-border merchants are rushing to boost sales at the end of the year; first, check the store’s “rejection rate”.
2025年12月22日
The 2025 Black Friday and Cyber Monday global shopping season has officially come to a close, with each platform’s sales report more impressive than the last, resembling a “digital fireworks show” of global consumption.
However, behind the record-breaking sales figures, a fierce battle over financial security and risk control is just beginning to intensify. For cross-border sellers, now is far from the time to relax; rather, it is the best time to review risks and strengthen defenses.
⚡️New features of Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2025: Extended festivities, earlier risk management
Compared to previous years, this year’s shopping season has several distinct characteristics, all pointing to one fact: the window of opportunity for risk management is opening earlier and the difficulty is increasing.
1. The battle lines have been extended and “sneak attacks” have increased: the promotion has changed from a “blitzkrieg” to a “protracted war”.
Many platforms started their promotional activities early and extended them into the post-holiday period. This is beneficial for sellers’ operations, but it’s also beneficial for fraudsters—they have more “operating time.” Transactions are no longer concentrated in three days, meaning that risk control systems must remain highly sensitive 24/7 and can no longer rely on phased, heavy-handed deployments.
2. “Friendly fraud” and professional fraudulent transactions go hand in hand, posing a double challenge to risk control : While sales are surging, two major types of fraud are also on the rise.
- B2C “Industrialized Fraud”: Criminal gangs use stolen credit card information purchased on the dark web to place orders during peak periods. They often target high-priced goods, using fake or forwarding addresses. Once the merchant ships the goods and the cardholder initiates an “unauthorized transaction” chargeback, they lose both the goods and the customer.
- “After-sales” fraud is surging: the logistical pressure and delayed customer service response brought about by major sales events have created opportunities for “friendly fraud” (i.e., customers receiving goods but maliciously refusing to pay). At the same time, there is also an increase in arbitrage or fraudulent refunds by taking advantage of platforms’ extended return policies (such as TikTok Shop extending the return period for goods purchased during Black Friday to mid-February of the following year).
3. Diversified payment methods and more complex risk control scenarios: To stimulate consumption, the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) service has been widely adopted.
On Black Friday, online spending on BNPL in the US reached $747.5 million, an increase of 8.9% year-over-year. While BNPL improved conversion rates, its longer payment chain and delayed default risks have placed new demands on merchants’ cash flow management and anti-fraud capabilities.
⚡️Don’t let profits disappear in “risk blind spots”
Battle reports represent past achievements, but only by reviewing these reports can future profits be determined.
Data Review: Are Your “Health Indicators” Flashing Red?
Immediately retrieve transaction data from the promotional period and focus on the following:
- Have there been any abnormal spikes in chargeback and dispute rates ? In particular, what are the growth rates before and after major sales events?
- Fraudulent Transaction Flagging: What percentage of suspected fraudulent transactions are flagged by payment gateways or risk control systems? What percentage of these ultimately translate into actual losses?
- Regional and category risks: Is there a concentration of disputes in a particular country or for a particular type of product? This is often a signal of targeted attacks.
Process review: Are there any vulnerabilities in your “immune system”?
Check your operations against the following high-risk points for peak season:
- Order surge handling: Did a sudden surge in order volume (e.g., an increase of 200%-300%) trigger a risk control alarm in the payment channel, leading to settlement delays?
- Information consistency: Are your advertising placement location, product shipping location, and payment account location consistent? Mixed or overlapping information is easily identified as a high-risk chain by the system.
- Fulfillment transparency: Are all orders promptly uploaded with traceable tracking numbers? Lack of logistical evidence is a common reason for failures in disputes.
- Response speed: For review notices and dispute cases from payment service providers or card organizations, can you provide a rapid response and evidence submission within 24 hours?
Strategy Review: Does your “defense system” need an upgrade?
Faced with professionalized and industrialized fraud, traditional manual checks and simple rules are no longer sufficient. We need to consider:
- Does it have real-time detection capabilities? Can it perform real-time risk assessment based on thousands of dimensions such as device fingerprints, behavioral biometrics, and network profiles within milliseconds of a payment being made, rather than providing post-event remediation?
- Do you have a customized risk control model? Can your risk control strategies be differentiated for different business scenarios such as independent websites, platform sales, and B2B, accurately intercepting suspicious transactions without harming legitimate orders?
- Has it been connected to a global risk database? Can it integrate with the global risk databases of international card organizations such as VISA and Mastercard to create a more accurate profile and insight into the acquirer of cross-border transactions, instead of relying solely on its own limited transaction history?
