Internet, mobile phones, and social media are widely used all across the globe. The evolution of technology has opened up new opportunities for businesses as well as consumers. The real-world operations are being shifted to online platforms for the convenience of users and adding another asset to company growth through online platforms. One of the industries taking advantage of technology is the retailing sector which has set up online shops through various e-commerce platforms. 

While the evolution of technology has opened immense opportunities, it has raised some major challenges and concerns for businesses.

E-commerce platforms a blessing or a disguise?

The E-commerce industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. Taking into account the trend, many brick and mortar retailers have developed their own e-commerce sites and have started selling their products online, targetting the huge number of consumers. People are ordering things, without leaving their place which has resulted in enhanced shopping experience and convenience. But all of this is not as easy as it seems. 

E-commerce platforms are not as secure because of the fact that every merchant be it a cloth seller or alcohol has an online presence. According to the study, a majority of the millennials - around 86% - are making purchases online through their smartphones. The expansion of mobile e-commerce has made it much harder for businesses to regulate their services, especially the businesses that are dealing with age-restricted merchandise. The unrestricted selling of products and services to children now falls under a criminal activity according to the UK’s digital economy act. 

Age Verification - The prominent challenge for merchants

In the physical world, merchants can identify the age of users by looking at their appearance and in case of ambiguity asking them for their ID. But in the online world, it reaches a whole different level of difficulty and becomes quite challenging for merchants. In an online world, the user can access products online and purchase them simply through credit cards without showing any identity proof. What if a child is using his parent’s card to purchase the age-restricted product, let’s say alcohol? How would the merchant know? It’s not just about alcohol but other age-restricted products as well, for example, weapons such as guns, knives, e-cigarettes, drugs, medicines, etc.

This is not something that can be neglected it may cause someone his life. Previously in 2016, an incident took place where a 16-year-old boy brutally stabbed and murdered his school-fellow. Upon investigations, he claimed that he purchased the deadly knife from Amazon. The negligence of the retailer-giant to verify the customer’s age before letting him purchase the product cost a boy his life. This is not the case, many other similar incidents have been reported in the past few years. With the regulations making age verification obligatory and to protect business repute and limiting the purchase of age-restricted products, merchants need to implement efficient age verification services to verify the customer’s age before allowing them access.

Age verification for age-restricted e-commerce

An online age verification solution powered by artificial intelligence is the perfect solution to limit the selling of age-restricted products and services to minors who don’t meet the minimum threshold. It allows businesses to verify and authenticate their users’ age through online ID document verification. It doesn’t only verify the user’s age by extracting the date of birth from the document but also validates the document format and information. It eliminates the risk of forged, tempered or expired documents and only real-users with true identity are allowed access to the products depending on the minimum threshold defined by the business.