Online Subscription Businesses And Age Verification
The world of e-commerce keeps growing drastically. As a result, most business owners who run online subscription businesses tend to focus on effective digital marketing strategies and product range optimization. While these two are important, business owners must consider age verification for website users.
The Relevance of Age Verification for Website Users
Age verification is quite essential when it comes to online subscription businesses. It's vital to have a system in place if you are selling age-restricted products or services. Digital transformation is moving at a breakneck pace, making the market quite volatile. As such, business owners need to pay extra attention to how they run their operations. Digital ID solutions are great for safe sign-ups and onboarding.
Many businesses generally place the onus on customers to supply details about their age but won't do any follow-ups to confirm the information submitted. For instance, many websites ask customers to tick a box agreeing they are above 18, which leads to underage users gaining access to age-restricted products and services. For instance, it can enable underage players to get into online gaming websites. It also creates problems with order fulfillment for online stores if the delivery partner does not verify the customer's age upon delivery. With effective age verification systems becoming increasingly easier to access, the consequences of failing to meet the requirements of website age verification laws are growing bigger.
{{cta('007d8804-adf3-4d63-890c-9f783f8025e1','justifycenter')}}
Fraud and Chargeback Prevention
Online subscription businesses are no strangers to chargebacks. It's pretty standard for customers to have issues with recurring payments over time because they forgot about the subscription or aren't aware that they have a subscription. The risk becomes more extensive when you add an age-restricted product.
A typical scenario is when kids use their parent's credit cards without asking for permission first. The moment the parent discovers the charge and cannot get a refund from you, they will initiate a chargeback. A great way to prevent such scenarios is to take your time to look into online subscription businesses, and how Investing in an age verification solution protects your business and products from ending up in underage hands, saving you from the frustration of dealing with chargebacks and financial loss.
Aside from protecting yourself from underage customers, age verification for website users also helps you block buyers using IP addresses flagged for fraudulent activity. In addition, customer integrations can help you set your rules for fraud detection. The software can then compare a client's information against a database with known fraudulent accounts. That way, the company can block the transaction before they are processed. You can even stop orders from entire regions, minimizing the risk of fraud.
Lower Risk of Refunds and Voiced Transactions
Since verification software precedes the customer checking out, an underage customer's transaction will not process, making payment processing a lot easier for the banks and merchants.
For instance, if you run an online magazine with a physical copy, it would be better to run age verification for website users on sign-up. Waiting to verify the customer's age upon delivery can cause several problems. If you discover that the customer is underage, you would have wasted a lot of time, effort, and money packing, shipping, and delivering the product. There's also the issue of returning to void or refunding the payment. Online verification eliminates the risk of this happening. Upon delivery, ID will only confirm that the customer's information matches the order details.
Reliable and Efficient Verification
One of the practices of online subscription businesses is to ask customers to submit their documents via email before they accept payment. While this can work, it's also quite time-consuming and inefficient. The system can face many challenges if staff are unavailable 24/7 and have other departments to manage. For instance, a customer might want to place an order or sign up at midnight. If staff are unavailable, the customer will have to wait until 8 am the following day. As you might imagine, this increases the risk of cart abandonment. Customers will most likely be impatient and decide to shop elsewhere.
A wise move would be to have an advanced age verification solution part of the sign-up process, taking the pressure off the staff. Such systems are high-speed and discreet. That way, chances are low that the customer will get frustrated, so you don't have to worry about the system harming your conversion rates. When a customer decides to update their shipping or billing information, the age verification software will respond by asking them to re-verify their age.
Age verification software is not only efficient and reliable, but it's also relatively cost-effective. For instance, most companies will only charge you for accepted transactions, so you won't have to pay for any declined transactions. Thus, it's a great perk for those cost-conscious business owners.
The Cost of Running an Online Subscription Business without Age Verification
Most business owners viewing verification for website users as an unnecessary cost. However, suppose one considers the potential downfalls of running an age-restricted online subscription business without an age verification solution. In that case, it is clear that the troubles far outweigh the cost.
Besides, underage product and service usage can come with severe fines that can cripple a business financially. Fortunately, there are lots of options on the market.
Online Age Verification with BlueCheck
BlueCheck's industry-leading identity verification infrastructure enables merchants to grow their businesses faster. Serving a wide variety of industries, our solutions are custom-tailored to the unique needs of our customers, including PACT Act and eCommerce-compliant offerings.
Schedule a call today with a BlueCheck specialist to learn more about our Age & ID Verification solutions.
{{cta('007d8804-adf3-4d63-890c-9f783f8025e1','justifycenter')}}
-3-p-500-2.png)