Stopping Fraud in Online Sneaker Sales
Inside this report
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Grow Your International Customer Base
Gain insight into shopping behavior and fraud patterns across markets and learn how to boost cross-border revenue.
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Fight Fraud & Prevent Costly Chargebacks
Identify which sneaker models and brands are targeted by fraudsters to improve fraud prevention accuracy.
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Boost Sales & Minimize False Declines
Discover positive indicators that will allow you to approve more orders and to drive online sales.
Report abstract
Thanks to surging demand, the sneaker industry is booming. But high value collectible sneakers are also a favorite target for fraudsters. This report elucidates CNP fraud patterns in the industry to help sneaker retailers bolster eCommerce fraud prevention accuracy and efficiency.
Introduction
The last decade has seen sneakers ascend from simple sportswear to coveted fashion items, and the sneaker industry is booming as a result. The global athletic footwear market is projected to be worth $83.2 billion in 2017, and to maintain a 2.5% annual growth rate thereafter. A disproportionate amount of this growth is happening in eCommerce; sneaker leaders like Nike and Under Armour reported big gains in eCommerce revenues in 2016. The popularity of sneakers has even led to the emergence of secondary online marketplaces, which are estimated to be worth a combined $1 billion.
But increased demand has brought with it unique fraud challenges for online sneaker retailers. The resale market, as well as their high collectible value, make sneakers sought-after items for fraudsters, and high fraud rates across the sector reflect this.
Additionally, the increased growth of cross-border eCommerce has led to strain on fraud teams, as international orders are particularly challenging to process.
Most sneaker retailers are aware of the high levels of fraud, but their prevention systems fail to detect it efficiently. Automated rules-based systems tend to broadly decline orders to certain countries or reshippers, leading to high false declines rates. Unoptimized rules mean retailers review too many orders manually, which often involves reaching out to customers to verify their identities. This friction can spoil the online shopping experience, and tends to be especially costly in the highly competitive sneaker vertical where many merchants sell identical products.
Compounding retailers’ difficulties, the constant release of new sneaker models creates regular order spikes. As a result, manual review teams face the strain of holiday volume surges not just seasonally, but all year round. During these releases, many retailers enact one-pair-per-customer rules, which lead shoppers to disguise their identity in attempts to overcome these policies – creating order behavior that
is difficult to distinguish from actual fraud. The unusually large share of teen and millennial shoppers also brings its challenges: according to Riskified’s data, at least 15% of sneaker chargebacks are friendly fraud, a type of fraud often associated with younger shoppers.
Riskified has extensive experience managing fraud for global online footwear and sneaker retailers, including Fortune 500 companies. We analyzed our extensive transaction data to compile this report on fraud trends in the sneaker industry. We hope it will help sneaker retailers gain insight and perspective into the threat they face, and increase their processing accuracy and efficiency.