Today I got RISNews’ Cross Channel Insights newsletter in my email inbox and the first article I notice is this one…

Enhancing Online Security: U.S. Consumers Lose Nearly $8.5 Billion to Online Threats | | RIS Cross-Channel Retailing Insights: Targeted Articles for Multi-Channel Retailing, E-Tail, and Web Analytics.

Interesting article about a online consumer threats (not really PCI-related) that are affecting online purchasers in a big way. The funny thing - the next article on the newsletter is this one -

High Gas Prices Drive More Shoppers Online This Holiday Season

So, online threats are continuing to cause web shoppers problems, but, even so, more shoppers are moving to on-line purchasing this holiday season and more shoppers are going to be one-stop-shopping.

These two articles are an example of how security and brand converge - although some of the threats that are discussed in the first article don’t have much to do with retailers directly, they do indicate that consumers are going to be affected by cyber threats and are going to be paying close attention to their shopping habits and online exposure.

Couple this with the desire to shop at fewer places (driven by gas prices) and that’s putting security into position to support your brand this holiday season in a way that is going to be very important given the state of the economy and the extremely competitive retail market.

Retailers need to understand that information security and protecting the customer experience can have a direct impact on both immediate sales and, long-term, the perception of the brand. That, in turn, can have a very significant impact on sales revenue, customer retention, access to capital, stock price, etc..