IRVINE, Calif. – The Retail Equation, the industry leader in retail transaction optimization solutions, today announced the company has stopped 6.5 million instances of return fraud and abuse. This prevention milestone, which more than doubled in the last 18 months across all of its retail clients, equates to a fraudulent return being prevented every single minute by The Retail Equation’s Verify® return authorization solution—even with the system approving 99 percent of all return transactions.
“Return fraud and abuse continues to be a costly issue for retailers, and The Retail Equation’s Verify solution illustrates how, by using the right tools, return rate and shrink can be effectively reduced,” said Mark Hammond, CEO of The Retail Equation. “Verify is a powerful deterrent that allows retailers to immediately address fraudulent returners in a systematic, objective manner.”
Verify enables retailers to rely on 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 software system is designed to identify return fraud and abuse, a $10 billion to $17 billion per year problem in the United States. In fact, for every $100 in returns, fraud and abuse costs retailers $3.82 to $6.20 in losses. To reduce these losses, many retailers use The Retail Equation’s Verify solution. As customers return merchandise, Verify 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.
Verify is one offering of the company’s portfolio of predictive analytics tools, which also includes Identify™ and Retail Rewards®.
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 two percent, with significant return on investment. The Software-as-a-Service applications operate in more than 34,000 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.
