On WooCommerce
Carver Tubs

Not taking a bath on fraud losses

Some things are still made right here in America, and for good reason. For 40 years, Carver Tubs has been designing, innovating and building bathtubs in Grandview, MO, just south of Kansas City.

A beautifully crafted bathtub with perfectly placed whirlpool or air massage jets is something most people will buy once in their lifetimes, or maybe twice if they’re remodeling, or maybe a third time if they’re moving, or for an investment property to rent on Airbnb. “For the most part, people placing an order with us really want a tub,” explains Benjamin Heyse, Director of Ecommerce at Carver Tubs. “They usually search for us online, find us on Amazon or eBay, or are recommended to us by their contractor.”

By eliminating middlemen and selling direct to consumers, Carver Tubs passes these savings on to consumers. With complete control over every step in their design and manufacturing process, they’re able to offer features suited to each buyer’s specific needs, ensuring a perfect fit for their home. As a family business, Carver Tubs benefits from a constant desire to innovate each bathing experience with greater comfort, beauty, and hygiene in every model they sell.

Know Thy Customer

Competing against brands with national distribution agreements and much larger advertising budgets, Carver Tubs stands out by handling orders with a personal touch and taking the time to get to know each buyer’s preferences. Putting the customer first is also what helped Heyse tackle fraud to achieve an almost perfect track record without chargebacks.

Before he joined Carver Tubs, the company’s senior management had suffered fraud losses and put in place certain policies to protect themselves. “I wasn’t allowed to ship orders where the Billing Address and Shipping Address didn’t match, ”Heyse said. However, being responsible for top and bottom line growth, Heyse needed a solution that overcame this restriction, as 25% of Carver’s orders fell in to this category. This is especially true since customers often order their bathtub before their house is fully built.

Working with his contacts across the online payments ecosystem, Heyse designed a unique process where customers would work with him to verify certain details and sign an online agreement confirming their liability for a purchase with a Billing/Shipping Address mismatch. Veteran fraud analysts will argue a determined fraudster could pose as a buyer and persist through Heyse’s requirements to procure a bathtub anyway. But Heyse maintained a perfect record with this methodology.

Invisible Costs of Fraud

So why does a company without chargebacks deploy Signifyd? Heyse says the benefits are clear. “It was taking so much of our time and resources. Sometimes we’d have to go back and forth with customers for days.” And with every other aspect of the business to manage, Heyse needed a trusted partner who could accept every order while taking responsibility for fraud and chargebacks. “Despite our strong track record, I would still worry about certain orders after we’d shipped them.” With real-time machine learning backed by a 100% financial guarantee against fraud and chargebacks, Signifyd’s Guaranteed Fraud Protection gave Heyse the confidence he needed to focus his energy on other aspects of the fulfillment process.

High quality bathtubs aren’t the simplest items to ship across the United States. With Signifyd, Heyse’s team is saving 95% of their order review time and is shipping orders out faster. This allows them to focus on other potential issues, such as reducing unforeseen damages during shipping, or how to collect feedback from customers and ensure they’re fully satisfied.

Carver Tubs has built a national business based largely on online reviews, referrals, and word-of-mouth marketing. Builders, contractors, and customers recommend them frequently. With design and manufacturing based in the US, they’ve continued to innovate features so their customers can enjoy better bathtubs with little to no maintenance. With Signifyd’s Guaranteed Fraud Protection in place, Heyse may now be able to enjoy some of the relaxation his company’s bathtubs have been providing to tens of thousands of Americans for over 40 years.