The Retail Equation Hits Major Milestone: Prevents Return Fraud Four Million Times
Verify-3 Helps Avert a Fraudulent Return Every 1.5 Minutes
The Retail Equation, the industry leader in retail transaction optimization solutions, recently announced the company has stopped four million instances of return fraud and abuse. This prevention milestone, which doubled in the past two years across all of its retail clients, equates to a fraudulent return being averted every 1.5 minutes by The Retail Equation’s Verify-3 return authorization solution—even with the system approving 99 percent of all return transactions.
“Retailers using Verify-3 are saving tens of millions of dollars by reducing return rate and shrink,” said Mark Hammond, CEO of The Retail Equation. “On average, retailers are seeing an eight percent reduction in return rate and 13 percent reduction to shrink. All while keeping consumers happy with hassle-free return policies that don’t increase their risk.”
Verify-3 enables retailers to rely on objective, verifiable data to determine whether a return is valid, rather than relying on subjective observations and guesswork by sales clerks. This objectivity approves all legitimate returns and ensures only those with highly suspect return-and-exchange behavior are affected.
The Retail Equation’s Verify-3 software system is designed to identify return fraud and abuse, a $9.1B to $16.3B per year problem in the United States. In fact, for every $100 in returns, fraud and abuse costs retailers $3.39 to $6.10 in losses. To reduce these losses, many retailers use The Retail Equation’s Verify-3 software system. As customers return merchandise, Verify-3 compares dozens of transaction variables against a set of statistical models and rules that form that particular retailer’s return policy. It is designed to distinguish and deter the less than 1 percent of consumers whose behaviors mimic return fraud or abuse.
About The Retail Equation
The Retail Equation, headquartered in Irvine, Calif., optimizes retailers’ revenue and margin by shaping behavior in every customer transaction. The company’s solutions use predictive analytics to turn each individual shopper visit into a more profitable experience. This yields immediate financial payback, increasing store comps by as much as 2 percent, with significant return on investment. The Software-as-a-Service applications operate in more than 27,000 stores in North America, supporting a diverse retail base of specialty apparel, footwear, hard goods, department, big box, auto parts and more. For more information, visit www.theretailequation.com.