According to the Federal Trade Commission, nearly $5 billion has been lost to online shopping scams(诈骗）in the first nine months of 2021.

“ 【小题1】 Often, these offers will more likely than not download some unwanted software onto your device rather than give you a good deal,” says Daniel Markuson, a digital privacy specialist. Here are some tips on how to avoid being scammed while shopping online.

Stick to “ https” websites. As a means of security, it’s important to visit and shop on sites that use “https”. The “s” stands for “secure”. While “https” isn’t everything when it comes to security, it definitely provides a level of protection. 【小题2】 You simply look at the URL bar(  网址栏 )   to see if it begins with “https://” the way it does on our website.

Check that the URL is right. It sounds simplistic. 【小题3】 Making sure you’re on the right online store could be the difference between entering your card details on “ Nike.com” and   “ n1ke.com”. This small difference in URLs leaves a huge opportunity for scammers to land you on a malicious(恶意的） website.

【小题4】 It’s generally best to avoid shopping online using public Wi-Fi networks because public Wi-Fi typically exhibits poor security and is often scanned by hackers(黑客）.

Additionally, it’s always wise to practice good password security. Generally, websites shouldn’t ask for your personal ID number or your password to another site to sell you something. 【小题5】

Sending a package back is not easy. Repacking, printing labels and shipping it back up to the seller is an increasingly familiar experience for online shoppers. In America 21%of online orders, worth some $218bn, were returned in 2021, according to the National Retail Federation, up from 18%in 2020. For clothing and shoes it can reach around 40%.

The problem has its roots in the birth of e-commerce. To compete with bricks-and-mortar (实体的) sellers and make consumers comfortable with ordering online, e-commerce firms offered free returns. Consumers came to expect it.

Each step of the process is costly. Retailers have to pay for goods to be picked up or posted. Processing returns is labor-intensive (劳动密集型), explains Zac Rogers who worked as a returns manager at Amazon. A return must be opened and someone has to decide what to do with it. “A worker in an Amazon warehouse can pick 30 items in a minute, but a return can take ten minutes to process, ” says Mr. Rogers.

Once processed, only 5% of the returned goods can be resold immediately by retailers. Most go to liquidators at the lowest prices or are thrown away.

One solution involves adding friction (阻力). Last year, a Japanese fashion brand became one of the first retailers to charge a small fee for posted returns. Other firms are selling more refurbished (翻新的) goods as a way to cut losses.

Startups are getting in on the action. Using artificial intelligence to help retailers decide what to do with the returned goods is the brainchild of them. Happy Returns, another startup, helps with logistics (物流). It has 5, 000 drop-off points for returns across America, mostly in chain stores. The returns are collected and sent back to retailers all at once, saving up to 40% of postage costs.

Some are experimenting with virtual reality (VR). Over half of the items are returned because they are the wrong size. In June Walmart said it would buy Memomi, an augmented-reality (AR) startup that lets shoppers virtually try on glasses in real-time for a seamless, easy and fun omnichannel experience. Walmart also offers ways to try on clothes and arrange furniture in rooms using AR.