GOLFTEC, a private golf instruction and golf club fitting company, may not be a typical retail business. But having scaled up its brick-and-mortar presence in recent years, the company understands the necessity of having a modern POS platform that can drive productivity and deliver pricing updates across its entire business. After leveraging cloud-based software from Revel Systems, GOLFTEC upgraded its POS systems in 200 locations across North America and Asia in a single day. While GOLFTEC wanted to implement an iPad-based system to take advantage of the technology’s intuitiveness, the company also realized that it had outgrown its previous POS system — particularly with the opening of approximately 40 new locations in the last two years. With Revel Enterprise, GOLFTEC can now push critical data and lesson pricing updates to its more than 200 locations with a single click.

While retailers are braced to deal with criminal types of fraud, a different response is needed to combat friendly fraud: chargebacks that arise out of legitimate transactions. These costs are a growing concern for the retail industry: 34% of retailers have experienced friendly fraud, which contributed to the $31 billion lost due to chargebacks in 2017, according to a study by Juniper Research. The two most common causes of friendly fraud are, when a shopper doesn’t recognize a charge on their bank statement; or, when they regret a purchase and issue a chargeback rather than asking for a refund. Communication is the key to fighting back against these scenarios without alienating customers, according to Srii Srinivasan, CEO of Chargeback Gurus. “Every type of retailer, whether small, medium or large, needs to set realistic expectations about their entire business model, from their product features and benefits to their refund and return policy to whether they’re subscription-based or not,” said Srinivasan. “There are many things that need to be listed on the web site, in the email and anywhere there’s a touch point with the customer.” Order confirmations are the first line of defense against chargebacks. They should be designed to be…

With a consumer base that includes increasingly debt-conscious Millennials, GlassesUSA believes that customers should not have to worry about breaking the bank when buying high quality eyewear online. This conviction led the company to adopt an installment payments option that allows shoppers to pay off their purchases in monthly increments with no interest, late fees or anxiety. Since offering the Splitit payment option to customers, GlassesUSA has increased AOV by more than 15% for shoppers spending $120 or more on its products. Among these high-order-value baskets, GlassesUSA has seen a 10% decrease in checkout abandonment.

Nearly half (49%) of consumers have reported being a victim of credit card fraud where their card information was illegally used by someone else, according to a survey from Riskified. Among these victims, 49% abandon the retailer entirely after learning of the fraud, with 29% blaming the merchant that approved the fraudulent purchase. Retailers also can lose customers when they adopt strict anti-fraud measures. Merchants often decline orders out of caution, which means they sometimes reject good, honest customers. Up to 30% of shoppers say they have had their purchase wrongly declined, and 57% of those declines happen to returning customers, with a corresponding negative impact on their satisfaction and return shopping. These false declines end up robbing retailers of as much as 5.5% of their annual revenue.