CASE STUDY

Living Spaces

Grows Revenue, Delivers More Without Increasing Headcount

“

Due to some complexities of selling furniture online, we were losing out on legitimate sales due to false declines, which also impacted customer relationships. By partnering with Forter, we’ve been able to trust the online transaction process, which has reduced false declines, increased revenues, and ensured that fraud, which was once top-of-mind, is now something we don’t have to think about.”
Pete Franco, President, livingspaces.com

THE CHALLENGE

Living Spaces is a leading furniture retailer with over 35 storefronts in the U.S. and a continually growing digital commerce presence. With furniture styles for more than 150 living room, 115 dining room, and 100 bedroom configurations, Living Spaces boasts a wide selection of brands and ships nationwide.

As they continued expanding their digital commerce offerings, Living Spaces realized that chargebacks weren’t the only issue.
The amount of revenue lost to false declines and cart abandonment multiplied, thanks to a legacy approach to fraud decisioning that relied on rules based on address verification. This meant sending legitimate transactions into manual review – overwhelming the customer service team and frustrating good customers.
“For example, the delivery address does not always match billing because people often ship furniture to new homes or relatives,” Franco said. “No amount of rules could make that work.”

THE SOLUTION

Through the partnership with Forter, Living Spaces was able to implement a fully-automated approach that did away with the rules – leading to more approved transactions while also decreasing the number of chargebacks. Not only did this boost revenue, but it reduced friction at checkout and enhanced the overall online furniture shopping experience for customers. And thanks to the added confidence in decisioning, reducing chargeback volumes improved the company’s relationship with credit card companies and created opportunities to expand its offerings, shipping to customers nationwide.

The shift away from rules and toward automation also meant changing how the team operated. The customer service team, previously having to be constantly thinking about fraud and handling manual reviews, could now focus on the quality of customer service and providing the support needed for various other types of customer inquiries.

THE RESULTS

Increased Revenue

Increased approval rate from 92% to over 99%
Increased top-line revenue by over 8%

Preserved Margins

Reduced chargeback rate from over 50bps to below 6bps

Reallocated Resources

Reduced manual review rate from 17% to 0%, allowing the team to focus on customer service
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“

Switching to Forter has resulted in significantly fewer declines and an elimination of manual reviews – and not only is that a huge win for our customers, it’s allowed us to expand and serve more customers in new markets.”
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- Pete Franco, President, livingspaces.com

About Forter

Digital commerce is built on trust. Without trust, businesses are leaving millions of dollars on the table. At Forter, we know that building trust means more than just blocking fraud. It means protecting the entire customer journey — from account creation to checkout and returns. Forter makes the most accurate, real-time decisions about every digital interaction, powered by the largest network of online retailers. Our Trust Platform makes decisions on more than $300B in transactions annually for some of the world’s digital commerce leaders, such as Priceline, Nordstrom, eBay, HelloFresh, and more.

Find out what Forter can do for your business