Case Study:

Other World

Computing

Forter lifts sales by 4-6% for leading electronics
online retailer

The problem

Other World Computing cares deeply about their customers. They
provide high quality products, expert advice concerning those
products, and excellent customer service. The idea behind all three
of these core components is the same - making sure that consumers
receive the best experience in every way possible.

Unfortunately, selling valuable electronic merchandise comes with
a risk. Online criminals love to purchase these sorts of goods, as
they are always popular and are easy to resell. Of course, these
fraudsters use stolen credit card information, and when the true
owner of the card finds out, the retailer is the one who ends up
paying the cost.

OWC was aware of this issue, and had developed a team of top
notch fraud analysts to combat it. The problem was that although
their work was good, it involved a lot of manual review, and that
meant that legitimate customers were having to wait for confirmation
of their order. A portion of them ended up canceling.

Results:

76%
False Positives
Reduction

4% - 6%
Lift in Sales

0%
Chargeback
Loss

Days
Hr
3to 1
Faster
Fulfillment

Instead of the fast dispatch that the company aimed for, and
achieved with orders which were not flagged as potentially
fraudulent, manual review meant it generally took several days to
dispatch. This was not in line with the optimal customer experience
and service that the company aims to provide.

The solution

When Other World Computing heard about Forter’s product,
they realized that it was exactly what they needed. Forter’s fraud
prevention system is highly accurate - so much so that all approved
orders are covered by a chargeback guarantee - and also fully
automated, working in real-time. That means that transactions
receive an instant approve or decline response.

OWC was also reassured by Forter’s consumer-centric emphasis,
which treats buyers as genuine unless proven guilty, and was
delighted to find that with Forter they had high approval rates of an
average of 99%.

The OWC team was delighted by the intuitive nature of Forter’s
interface, which made the product easy to use right from the
beginning, and provided fraud and business-related information
and trends which the company has found useful from a business
perspective as it provides an extra level of insight into their
customers, both real and fraudulent.

The result

The impact on customer satisfaction was immediate. Buyers are no
longer held up or confused by the wait caused by manual reviews,
and never have to provide extra information to prove their identity.
And ‘false positives,’ cases of good customers rejected because
they looked risky, which used to be at 4.2%, are now practically
zero. That’s an improvement of 76% percent.

OWC now finds that they receive glowing consumer reviews from
buyers who would previously have been inconvenienced by the
manual review process. Now all customers receive the same
speedy delivery. “Being able to provide that instant gratification is
very valuable for us,” reported Jennifer Soulé, President of Other
World Computing. “It really differentiates us from other retailers and
now all of our customers benefit from our fast processing time.

“We are extremely satisfied
with our choice to work
with Forter. Our approval
rates are excellent,
chargebacks are covered,
and fulfillment times have
improved considerably.”
Lawrence O’Connor, CEO

“Being able to provide that
instant gratification is very
valuable for us. It really
differentiates us from other
retailers and now all of our
customers benefit from our
fast processing time.”
Jennifer Soulé, OWC
President

Freedom to Focus

The excellent results that Other World Computing have seen with
Forter have enabled them to “leave the fraud fighting to the experts

• the people who do this, and dig into this data, all day”, as Jennifer
  Soulé put it. Moreover, resources previously allocated to fraud
  prevention can now be usefully employed elsewhere, strengthening
  the business as a whole.

What all this means for the company is a renewed ability to focus on
their market and their products, providing a world-class experience
for their customers.

“We always hated the idea that potential theft prevented us from
getting products into legitimate customers’ hands. Before we
started working with Forter, even when we were using other fraud
management platforms, stopping that theft meant being constantly
engaged in the details of fraud prevention,” says Jennifer Soulé.

“But devoting the necessary time to do that was a distraction from
the core business. Now, more time can be devoted to customer
growth and business opportunities. Forter has allowed us to focus
our resources where they matter most, company growth and the
future.

About Forter

Forter provides fraud prevention for the challenges of modern
e-commerce. 100% automated, Forter’s solution evaluates
every transaction in real-time and provides instantaneous approval/
rejection decisions so genuine customers aren’t even aware that
they’re being examined.

Behavioral analytics, cyber intelligence and elastic identity combine
with machine learning and the power of big data, informed and
refined by the human understanding of highly trained analysts,
to create a system so accurate that Forter offers a chargeback
guarantee. The result is that companies can make the choices that
are best for their business and its growth.

“Forter has allowed us to
focus our resources where
they matter most, company
growth and the future.”
Jennifer Soulé, OWC
President