VisionDirect.com.au (part of SmartBuyGlasses Group), is an eyewear ecommerce retailer with presence in over 20 countries. According to the retailer and their fraud prevention vendor Forter, the relationship between retailers and consumers is pivoting, based on finding a balance between fraud management and customer satisfaction.
As an online eyewear retailer, Vision Direct is in a space traditionally dominated by brick-and-mortar shops. However, with people staying at home due to the pandemic, more consumers are making their purchases online. Vision Direct experienced a large uptick in the number of new customers purchasing from their brand. The ecommerce business model provided a safe and viable alternative for customers who want to buy eyewear but do not want the risks of shopping at a physical store.
Vision Direct’s investment in newer technology allows it to deliver a positive online shopping experience that helps to put customers at ease, even if they previously would have preferred to physically see and touch eyewear products before making their purchase decisions.
For example, the company uses augmented reality and face tracking technology to let customers try on glasses virtually using their webcams or phone. This way, they can browse through more than 30,000 designs from over 200 brands from the comfort of their own home.
Vision Direct also introduced a mobile phone app that allows customers to read the prescription off their glasses. All they have to do is to place their mobile phone in front of their glasses and the app provides them a prescription.
Managing fraud risks while operating on a global scale
As an ecommerce business operating in multiple countries, Vision Direct must balance business expansion and growth, with protection against fraud.
The visionary management of Vision Direct is keenly focused on customer experience and appreciates that inefficient fraud management processes that may falsely decline legitimate customers do more harm than good.
Doron Kalinko, Co-Founder, said: “It was crucial that we pick the right partner for fraud management to ensure that our systems are working correctly, and that we are not missing out on potential revenue opportunities. We were looking for a fraud management partner that can offer strong approval rates, extremely fast processing of orders, and a massive decline in chargebacks – and I’m very pleased that Forter has delivered on all fronts.”
Working with Forter allowed Vision Direct to reduce inefficiencies in their fraud management process, increasing approvals by 8% since the start of the relationship and eliminate almost 100% of customer complaints related to false declines.
Matt Humphries, Country Manager, Australia and New Zealand at Forter commented: “We are pleased that Vision Direct has selected Forter as a partner in their fraud prevention journey. The acceleration of digital transformation coupled with intense competition for delivering the best customer experience means that superior fraud prevention will play an even more critical role in e-commerce revenue growth. When done right, fraud prevention can be a growth and revenue enablement engine for online retailers, and we’re committed to delivering exceptional outcomes for enterprises such as Vision Direct.”
Additionally, Vision Direct’s employees can now focus on building better relationships with customers and speeding up purchase delivery, instead of manually checking through high-risk transactions for fraud. These inefficient and time-consuming tasks are now taken care of intelligently by the Forter platform in real-time.
“At the end of the day, we were able to deliver a seamless experience for our customers and instil a sense of confidence and trust in them when they shop with us. We have also been able to reposition a lot of our time to allow employees to build relationships and have better conversations with customers, instead of spending time challenging them on who they were,” added Doron.
