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11/07/2026 8:37 pm
TL;DR: U.S. online grocery sales hit $10 billion in July as retailers push faster delivery, broader assortments, and loyalty-led growth, but Riskified says those same conditions increase fraud, abuse, and false declines. The governance challenge is not just transaction screening, but policy design that protects revenue without breaking customer trust.
NHIMG editorial — based on content published by Riskified: an analysis of fraud and policy abuse in online grocery
By the numbers:
- U.S. online grocery sales hit a record-breaking $10 billion in July.
- The network already knows 94% of your customers.
Questions worth separating out
Q: How should grocers reduce fraud without creating excessive false declines?
A: Grocers should use risk-based decisioning that combines account behaviour, basket context, fulfilment signals, and redemption history rather than relying on static rules alone.
Q: Why do loyalty programmes attract fraud and abuse?
A: Loyalty programmes hold convertible value, so attackers can monetise points, discounts, and rewards without stealing payment cards.
Q: What do security and fraud teams get wrong about promotion abuse?
A: They often treat promotions as a marketing problem instead of a governed trust decision.
Practitioner guidance
- Map abuse paths across the customer journey Trace where account takeover, reward redemption, promo use, and checkout decisioning intersect so the same identity signal informs every control point.
- Tune rules to grocery-specific behaviour Build separate thresholds for recurring baskets, delivery cadence, and low-margin repeat orders rather than reusing generic ecommerce risk policies.
- Measure false declines as a business-risk metric Track rejected legitimate orders, customer complaint rates, and repeat purchase drop-off alongside chargebacks and fraud loss.
What's in the full article
Riskified's full article covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:
- How to use past transactions from other merchants to score order risk more precisely.
- Which carts, categories, and transaction characteristics signal suspicious behaviour in real buying flows.
- How to protect loyalty, reduce chargebacks, and limit policy abuse without collapsing customer trust.
- How to automate fraud detection so manual review volume and support calls fall at the same time.
👉 Read Riskified's analysis of fraud and policy abuse in online grocery →
Online grocery fraud and policy abuse: what grocers need to know?
Explore further
11/07/2026 9:05 pm
Policy abuse is the core governance problem in digital grocery, not just classic fraud. The article shows that speed, promotions, and loyalty incentives expand the decision surface attackers can game. That means the control question is not only whether a transaction is fraudulent, but whether a business policy has created a reusable abuse path. Practitioners should treat promotion design, refund logic, and loyalty redemption as governed trust decisions, not marketing details.
A question worth separating out:
Q: How can organisations tell if fraud controls are too aggressive?
A: A strong signal is rising legitimate-order rejection, customer complaints, manual-review load, and repeat-purchase drop-off at the same time fraud losses appear stable. That combination usually means the policy is overblocking. The right response is to recalibrate thresholds, not simply tighten them further.
👉 Read our full editorial: Online grocery growth is widening fraud and policy abuse risks
