Style Store prevents fraud & chargebacks, gains confidence to sell higher value items with ClearSale

Style Store gives its customers accessible luxury shopping experiences that follow the latest trends. The company’s physical stores across Argentina and its ecommerce site offer premium home goods, electronics and technology, jewelry, watches, fragrance, eyewear, musical instruments and more from some of the best-known international brands. 

Although Style Store started 2020 on track for its growth plans, the company was unprepared for the rapid growth in orders that accompanied the pandemic. “Before the pandemic, we had about 25 to 30 orders per day. Then all of a sudden, we were getting 250 to 300 orders a day,” said Ricardo Calderón, Style Store’s Head of Operations, Digital Commerce & Customer Experience. 

But with the increase in orders came an increase in costly fraud. “We had to recognize that our products were especially attractive to scammers, the financial losses were considerable, and at that point we had become 'clients' of crime," Calderón said.

The Challenge: Find Expert Fraud Prevention Solutions to Protect Revenue and Maximize Growth

Style Store tried to stop the rising rate of fraudulent orders by adopting several new strategies, including having employees review orders, but these tactics quickly proved to be slow and ineffective. “We needed a way to keep up with the growing fraud problem,” Calderón said.

Style Store began searching for a solution that could quickly and accurately detect fraudulent orders, without generating false positives that could turn new customers away permanently. According to ClearSale’s most recent Guide to Ecommerce in Argentina, high false decline rates are a particular problem in the market, and 40% of consumers won’t shop again with a retailer that declines their order. That can represent a substantial loss of customer lifetime value in an ecommerce market that’s among the fastest growing in the world, with 25% growth in 2023. 

Style Store’s fraud problem reached a crisis point in January 2022, when 25% of the month’s orders resulted in chargebacks. The company began evaluating ecommerce fraud prevention vendors to finally resolve the issue.

The Solution: ClearSale Total Guaranteed Protection

ClearSale’s Total Guaranteed Protection gave Style Store complete protection from chargeback costs. ClearSale also helped Style Store reduce false declines to increase order approval rates, which helped the company maintain customer loyalty and growth. 

• 20+ years’ worth of fraud prevention experience in the world’s most dynamic and challenging ecommerce markets.
• Fraud screening tailored to Argentinian luxury consumers’ online shopping behavior and preferred payment methods. 
• Freedom from the cost of fraud-related chargebacks.
• A better customer experience and more revenue thanks to fewer false positives.
• More confidence to sell higher value products and to consider expanding into new markets.

Three months after implementing ClearSale’s Total Guaranteed Protection, Style Store was seeing higher average approval rates. They also enjoyed a complete elimination of fraud chargeback costs and faster order approvals–even during a spike of more than 550 fraud attempts in the spring of 2023. 

* this drop in March/April is the result of high fraud attempts protected with success

In addition, Style Store found ClearSale easy to work with. “The integration of ClearSale was surprisingly seamless. We simply shared our company's information, and the platform began to learn and adapt to the needs of our store and our customers", Calderón said.

Now, Style Store can focus on serving its customers with the most on-trend luxury goods and providing exceptional customer service without hiring new employees, because employees who were once tasked with reviewing orders can now provide faster responses to customer questions. 

Calderón said that based on their success at fighting fraud and improving customer experience with ClearSale, Style Store is now considering expanding into Brazil, another fast-growing ecommerce market. “Working with ClearSale has allowed us to drastically reduce our risk of financial losses, avoid the need to hire more staff to review orders, and increase our confidence because we know that we’re protected.”