Forever 21

CASE STUDIES

Before Bolt, we would have many customers get frustrated with the checkout that they would never complete a purchase. Bolt's checkout process is faster, less distracting, and breaks down the steps really well for the customer.

We struggled for years with our one-page checkout with no real solutions insight without a complete migration. Bolt allowed us to breathe new life into the website and convert those customers that ordinarily would experience resistance when checking out.

The checkout process is fast and easy for our customers. This has lead to a higher conversation rate, increased sales, and at the same time eliminating fraudulent chargebacks. 

The Bolt checkout on our site now loads in one second which is a vast improvement. We've been very pleased with the increase in conversion rates that we have seen since moving to Bolt.

Provides a quick, minimal information checkout. No need to add customer shipping and billing address information. With Bolt's Fraud protection built in, we know that we are safe and covered should anything happen.

In our first month with Bolt our store nearly tripled our eCommerce sales numbers. I now can focus on the business, not thinking about abandonment. 

We run Bolt on 3 different websites (2 platforms) and I really can't say enough good things about it. Our customers love the speed and convenience of the front-facing interface, and we love the security of knowing our orders are legitimate without spending hours verifying that on our own.

The cart load times are extremely fast which is good for mobile customers. Product installation was a breeze and their team is extremely friendly and responsive and are willing to work on ideas/topics that you bring their way.

Bolt simplified the checkout process and removed friction for our customers. The checkout widget doubled our conversion rate.

Bolt offers a progressive, modern checkout solution that combines what would usually take separate services into a minimalist experience.

Amazing improvement in checkout experience. Backend dashboard is very easy to use. Customer service and support has been amazing.

The support at Bolt is second to none. They are EXTREMELY responsive, even after hours, and address any issues expeditiously.

Bolt's fraud protection is efficient and amazing! Not only did we cut our manual work, we have gone from 2-3 chargebacks a month to 1 in the last 6 months!

Bolt has completely eliminated order review. We are able to push orders through without doing additional leg work.

Bolt was a great solution for cutting down on manual fraud checking, which was eating up a ton of time for the support team. 

We never realized how many good orders we were losing out on. It is great to be able to service quality customers with a pain-free checkout process. 

This is by far the best plugin a Woo user can install. Besides the peace of mind it provides on stopping fraudulent orders, it immediately increased our conversion rate by 40%. 

The amount of time it took for us to bill and review all online orders was causing a lot of headaches. Bolt has enabled us to work on other tasks and projects while their software seamlessly takes care of all online orders from start to finish.

See how Bolt is perfecting checkout for online retailers

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Case Studies

Before Bolt

Craig Bates

To Integrate Bolt One Click

tracked results

<h2>How Hoffmann Group USA successfully expanded to the U.S. with Bolt</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When leading industrial tooling and equipment manufacturer and ecommerce retailer</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"><a href="https://hoffmanngroupusa.com/" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;"> Hoffmann Group </a>set out to expand their business in the U.S., they knew a seamless checkout experience would be a key component to their success. Even though Hoffmann is a </span><a href="https://www.hoffmann-group.com/US/en/hus/hoffmann-group/about-us/history/e/116655/" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">100+-year-old</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, billion-dollar business based out of Germany with a presence in 18 countries, their U.S. operations were lean. The team had a small budget and consisted of a few dozen people, including a one-man Ecommerce team. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">By building a website uniquely crafted for the U.S. market, Hoffmann Group USA customers could have their orders fulfilled faster, which led to higher conversion. Craig Bates, Hoffmann Group USA’s ecommerce manager, was tasked with developing and executing a comprehensive strategy. He used <a href="http://www.BigCommerce.com" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">BigCommerce </a></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">to build their website </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">on his own in just three months</span>.</p>


“Bolt offers the best return on investment, the best customer service, ease of use, and scalability.”

<h3>Small team, big ambitions</h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">With no engineers on his team, Bates knew he wanted an out-of-the-box checkout solution that was also optimized for conversion. Bates was already using a well-known credit card processing company, but because of their “non-existent customer service and fraud controls,” he started researching industry leading one-click credit card processing partners. </span><a href="https://www.realmilkpaint.com/'" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;"></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">All roads led him to Bolt <a href="https://www.bigcommerce.com/apps/bolt/" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">One-Click Checkout</a></span><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span><a href="https://www.realmilkpaint.com/'" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;"></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“The initial push for me was how much I disliked using other checkout options and then after seeing what Bolt has to offer, it was absolutely the best,” said Bates. “There’s no comparison, there’s Bolt and everyone else is lagging behind.&#8221;</span><a href="https://www.realmilkpaint.com/'" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;"></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When Hoffmann Group USA joined the Bolt Network in October of 2021 as a BigCommerce retailer, Bates was immediately impressed by how easy Bolt was to integrate into their current website. </span><a href="https://www.realmilkpaint.com/'" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;"></a></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“The tech team walked me through how to do it and it was so easy. The service was amazing,” said Bates. “Comparing Bolt&#8217;s functionality, features and customer support to what we were using before, it was night and day.”</span></p>


“The service was amazing. Comparing Bolt's functionality, features, and customer support to what we were using before, it was night and day.”

<h3><strong>B2B Growth</strong></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Hoffmann Group USA continues to scale in the U.S., aiming to grow available HoffmannGroupUSA.com product SKUs from 4,500 to over 7,000 SKUs. It’s aiming to continue to grow revenue in this year and beyond, after tripling initial revenue goals in 2021. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The company is also looking to take advantage of the Bolt network </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">and its tens of millions of shoppers worldwide (and growing) to expand beyond B2C customers to also increase their B2B business.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“Bolt is the absolute best choice for a checkout solution,” said Bates. “Not only for small businesses but for businesses of all sizes who want to see rapid growth and accelerated customer experiences only available to them if they use Bolt. It’s the best solution because it offers the best customer service, the best return on investment, and ease of use and scalability.&#8221;</span></p>


Hoffmann Group USA

Order approval rate

<h2>How SkinMedix increased repeat customers by 20% using Bolt</h2>
<p>After graduating from pharmacy school, Aaron Kozol started his career by setting up an online pharmacy in the late 90s. From there, Kozol explored a few business ideas until he launched SkinMedix in 2005. <a href="https://www.skinmedix.com/" rel="noopener" target="_blank" style="color: #ffffff;">SkinMedix</a> is the perfect intersection of Kozol’s knowledge of drug science and ecommerce.</p>
<p>For over 15 years, SkinMedix has been a force for change in the world of anti-aging skin care and the health and beauty retail world. There was a downside to offering popular products, the website was a target for fraudsters from day one. Kozol experimented with many fraud-protection solutions, but none could solve his problem. But, he didn’t give up, as research and trial are in his DNA.</p>


<h3>When a founder has to double up as a detective</h3>
<p>The constant flurry of fraudulent orders continued to frustrate Kozol. “If one [fake order] does get past, it can go for days or weeks and literally be 10s of 1000s of dollars before it&#8217;s caught,” says Kozol. The impact is significant in terms of lost time and money, with a ripple effect on inventory and chargeback fees.</p>
<p>SkinMedix was running on WooCommerce and PayPal Pro at that time, but Kozol discovered that these solutions were not foolproof. Eventually, he developed a few manual hacks of his own to flag fake transactions.</p>
<p>“I became a detective with all these tools, researching people and histories and addresses, and I was paying subscription fees for these solutions to look them up,” he says. Regardless, he still had to spend two hours daily on fraud filtration. “It&#8217;s time that I could have been investing somewhere else,” he acknowledges.</p>


We removed fraud from the conversation. It’s not even a consideration on our site anymore.

<h3>Finding a healthy solution</h3>
<p>When Kozol encountered Bolt, he was cautiously optimistic about finding an effective fraud-protection solution, but was still in “prove it” mode. SkinMedix switched to Bolt in January 2020 and quickly saw the proof it needed.</p>
<p>“We removed fraud from the conversation. It’s not even a consideration on our site anymore. We can go about our lives and do the forecasting for inventory and know that our numbers are accurate,” says Kozol.</p>
<p>There was also a corresponding decrease in unnecessary chargeback fees with a high order approval rate of 99.1%. &#8220;It&#8217;s a significant savings for us. The Bolt chargeback department is having way more success representing our cases. Funds that were losses in previous years are now recovered,&#8221; he explains.</p>


<h3>Leveraging the benefits of the Bolt Network</h3>
<p>Kozol brought in Bolt to tackle SkinMedix’s fraud concerns and those were eliminated in short order. An unexpected surprise was how many shoppers had positive feedback on the new checkout experience. “I&#8217;ve had several customers write to me specifically about the checkout saying it was the fastest checkout that they&#8217;ve ever experienced in their life,” says Kozol. Some were even worried that they perhaps missed out a step in the order placement because it went through really quickly.</p>
<p>At checkout, after entering their contact and payment details, shoppers have the option to create a Bolt account. They can quickly checkout with a single click for every order after that. For SkinMedix, the speedy checkout process has translated into repeat customers, retaining their new and existing shoppers, and increasing transaction volumes.</p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0;">Kozol shared some positive indicators:</p>
<ul style="list-style: disc; padding-left: 40px; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<li>38% of guest transactions convert into Bolt account creation</li>
<li>Over 12,000 unique shoppers have created a Bolt account from the SkinMedix website</li>
<li>67.7% of checkout conversions are tied to customers with a Bolt account</li>
<li>20% of shoppers who created a Bolt account on SkinMedix are repeat customers</li>
</ul>
<p>SkinMedix has also seen a 3.5% increase of new shoppers coming from the Bolt network. These are shoppers who created a Bolt account on another site and were first time visitors to SkinMedix. They can easily checkout on SkinMedix with a single click.</p>


<h3>The perfect balance between support and flexibility</h3>
<p>Although the Bolt team took care of hosting and infrastructure, Kozol still wanted the freedom of code-level customizations. Kozol has always been hands-on with the implementation of technology solutions and Bolt offered “the best of both worlds.” He didn’t have to choose between having to “fly solo” for customizations and being completely dependent on a hosted solution.</p>
<p>Kozol mentioned Bolt’s willingness to go the extra mile by customizing solutions. “That level of customization…is something unique that I haven’t seen from other vendors,” says Kozol. In particular, Bolt’s seamless integration resolved the previous glitch of enabling Apple Pay as a payment option in the WooCommerce platform. He adds, “I was really impressed that Bolt treated me like a billion-dollar company.”<br />
The flexibility of Bolt CheckoutOS is extended to the customers of SkinMedix as well. Kozol has empowered customers to think outside the box when it comes to the way they purchase and select their beauty products. With Bolt, they have access to different payment methods—credit cards, Apple Pay, PayPal, and more. As Kozol says, “everybody has their routine that they fall into, and if the platform can cater to that need, it&#8217;s just one less barrier to conversion.”</p>


<h3>Maximizing value to the Shopper</h3>
<p>Kozol believes that, “we’re at the tip of the iceberg” and sees potential for high growth in the health and beauty market. But he also noted that you need to get the basics right—deliver quality products that work and make the buying experience hassle-free for the customer—to build customer loyalty. With Bolt, he has set up a strong base in the online market, freeing up his time to focus on next steps such as expanding to other international markets and adding more curated products to SkinMedix.</p>


Bolt Accounts Created (since site launch)

Of retail sales made by Bolt Account shoppers in 2021

SkinMedix

Order Approval Rate

<h2>How BuyWake rode the checkout conversion wave and radically decreased fraud</h2>
<p>Twin brothers and founders, Lee and Eric Elliott know all about turning a passion into a career and capturing incredible results. While in high school, they developed a love for ocean surfing and wanted to build a business that celebrates the water world. In 1997, along with their late stepfather, Chuck Morrow, they started Ambush Board Co. in Atlanta, fusing the complementary elements of punk rock, skateboarding, wakeboarding, and snowboarding.</p>
<p>Originally conceived as a flagship brick-and-mortar store, the founding team quickly saw the benefits of ecommerce. In 2001, they launched their website <a href="https://www.buywake.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;"> buywake.com</a>, a dynamic ecommerce space that sold their products and promoted the tight-knit community of wake culture.</p>


<h3><strong>Challenges: slow checkout and fraudulent transactions</strong></h3>
<p>Although the fundamentals were in place, the team had everyday technical challenges with their website, limiting their ability to grow and retain customers. The first issue was a slow and clumsy checkout process, which resulted in frustrated customers. Eric Elliott recalls, “our conversion rate was lower than it had ever been.”</p>
<p>In addition to the slow checkout process, the fraud prevention solution on BuyWake wasn’t accurate. Elliott says it was, “allowing too much fraud to get through and having a fair amount of false positives.” The algorithm allowed fraudsters to get away and flagged genuine transactions incorrectly, leading BuyWake to lose revenue. Elliott mentioned there was also an issue with their previous provider’s Magento integration. When flagged orders were approved, they wouldn’t be inserted into the transaction flow. As a result, the BuyWake team wouldn’t even know about the flagging change of genuine transactions until the chargeback came through due to the order having never been fulfilled and received.</p>
<p>For a mature business like BuyWake, Elliott says the key metrics are number of orders, conversion rate, and website traffic — all revenue drivers. Losing customers due to an inefficient website was a deal breaker for BuyWake.</p>


<h3><strong>Enter Bolt</strong></h3>
<p>In 2019, the BuyWake team decided to onboard Bolt into their Magento platform and leveraged Bolt’s powerful checkout and fraud prevention capabilities. “The integration of Bolt with Magento was a smooth process with no snags,” Elliott says. He recalls that most of the technical integration happened behind the scenes and he didn’t have to be actively involved in it.</p>
<p>Soon after the onboarding, BuyWake saw two huge benefits from Bolt: optimized checkout and fraud prevention.</p>


<h3><strong>Lightning-fast checkout</strong></h3>
<p>Prior to BuyWake onboarding Bolt, customers had an option to create an account with BuyWake, customers hardly interacted with this option, 90% of the transactions were guest checkouts. But BuyWake observed a change in this trend — 40% of guest transactions converted into Bolt accounts.</p>
<p>The ease and speed of the one-click checkout process, along with the ability to create a Bolt account gave BuyWake customers an Amazon-like experience, Elliott shared. The creation of a Bolt account helps both customers and the business: customers get the advantage of a speedy, one-click checkout while the business gains insights into customer preferences and behaviors.</p>
<p>Since going live with Bolt, over 11,000 unique shoppers have created Bolt accounts on the BuyWake site and 19% are repeat customers. The checkout conversion rates have since risen to 68% compared to 40% for guest checkouts.</p>


<h3><strong>Wiping out fraud</strong></h3>
<p>Before Bolt, BuyWake experimented with different fraud solutions, but had finally settled on an in-house solution with an employee manually reviewing all the orders to spot fraud. Bolt allowed BuyWake to save unnecessary time and cost. Post-Bolt, BuyWake’s chargebacks decreased significantly, and the average order approval rate to 98%.</p>
<p>Reflecting on the difference BuyWake has seen since Bolt, Elliott Shares, “I don&#8217;t even call it [fraud] prevention, I say elimination. Because it&#8217;s handled, I can see the rejected orders, I can tell why they&#8217;re rejected through the insights, and I know we&#8217;re not turning away good business. When we do have a chargeback, it&#8217;s covered.”</p>


"You can't argue against one-click checkout, total fraud elimination, an improved post-purchase experience, and beyond. That...and Bolt is the consummate partner.”

<h3><strong>Customer service: going above and beyond</strong></h3>
<p>BuyWake operates in difficult market conditions that make it hard to maintain profitability. Many of their friction points such as escalating shipping fees and high advertising costs fall outside the realm of the ecommerce platform. In such a tough business climate, seemingly small things make a difference.</p>
<p>For instance Elliott says, “the reduced payment processing fees with Bolt made a difference to BuyWake. A fraction of a percentage point across 50,000 transactions really adds up.” He also calls out his top-notch experience with the customer support team adding, “Bolt continues to be nimble and prioritize what&#8217;s important to us and our business.” Regardless of whether it’s a bug that needs a fix or a new request that needs to be addressed, Bolt’s responsiveness has given BuyWake a big boost.</p>


<h3><strong>Perfectly poised to ramp up</strong></h3>
<p>Moving forward Elliott says, “he would like to tap into the data available with the Bolt network—which has already brought them 5% of new shoppers—and Bolt accounts to build personalization capabilities and loyalty programs into the BuyWake website.” The goal is to offer recommendations and incentives to customers based on their individual interests.</p>
<p>As the BuyWake team gears up to deliver more value to its shoppers, Bolt’s reliable partnership will help them keep pace with changing needs.</p>


Bolt One Click Transactions (since site launch)

of retail sales made from Bolt Account shoppers in 2021

of transactions in 2021 from cross network Bolt account shoppers

Case Study – Buywake

Kirk Anton

<h2>How Heat Transfer Warehouse Increased its Monthly Orders by 71%</h2>
<p>In 2010, when Kirk Anton was trying to figure out the next step in his career, his mentor suggested the idea of starting a company that would be an all-encompassing source for heat transfer products. That became the seed for <a href="https://www.heattransferwarehouse.com/" target="_blank=" rel="noopener" style="font-weight: strong; color: #ffffff;">Heat Transfer Warehouse</a>. What started with one person and a dog has now grown into a 47-member team—and three dogs, across its four locations.</p>
<p>Just like any new business, Anton started simple—with some material in a warehouse, he called potential customers to build a clientele. A few months later, when he set up a website, he realized the potential of ecommerce.</p>
<p>“I went to bed and woke up the next morning. I had sold $1000 during the night. And that’s the point I knew that ecommerce was the future,” mentioned Kirk Anton, Owner at Heat Transfer Warehouse.</p>
<p>Currently, Heat Transfer Warehouse doesn’t have any storefronts, they operate solely from their ecommerce website.</p>
<h3><strong>Inefficiencies and Constraints</strong></h3>
<p>The company had its share of challenges with the ecommerce tech stack. For starters, its fraud detection process was cumbersome and faulty. They used Braintree as the payment processor and Braintree’s basic fraud blocking features as well. Unfortunately, they ended up with low order approval rates and their customer service team had to spend hours on manual reviews every day.</p>
<p>Also, their checkout process was clunky, leading to poor conversion rates. The company had an impressive 40% to 50% returning website visitor rate. But, the dismal checkout experience meant that they couldn’t tap into their loyal customer base and expand the business the way they wanted to.</p>


<p>Braintree’s payment processing had little flexibility and its reporting data was not useful when it came to testing new campaigns and learning where customers were engaging. Heat Transfer Warehouse wanted to partner with someone who would be more flexible and help address these challenges.</p>
<p>Anton found his company&#8217;s growth was being inhibited by the technology that was supposed to make his life easier. Kirk sought a better technology partner—one that could help him better realize the potential of his business.</p>
<h3><strong>Transition to Bolt: An End-to-end Ecommerce Solution</strong></h3>
<p>When Anton was evaluating the Bolt platform, his main objective was to solve the issues with fraud and checkout. However, he zeroed in on Bolt because it was an “all-in-one solution” that came with rich features and could integrate seamlessly with BigCommerce, Heat Transfer Warehouse’s ecommerce platform.</p>
<p>On a day-to-day level, the first immediate tangible impact for the company was the ability to communicate with the Bolt customer service team, who were willing to listen and incorporate any unique requirement that they had.</p>


“Bolt’s flexibility was a big win, in comparison to the generic nature of the product they used prior to Bolt”.

<p>Other benefits followed soon. Bolt’s fraud detection capabilities automated the process and eliminated the need for hours of manual reviews. With Bolt, we have reached a 99.8% order approval rate with minimal manual time spent. This, along with Bolt’s seamless CheckoutOS process, enabled Heat Transfer Warehouse to process their orders faster and cut out any inefficiencies. The result? From around 7,000 orders a month, the company has been able to scale to around 12,000 orders a month.</p>
<h3><strong>Tapping Into the Bolt Network</strong></h3>
<p>Onboarding the Bolt platform meant that Heat Transfer Warehouse could offer its customers the option of using Bolt accounts in addition to a guest checkout. When a customer creates a Bolt account, they can save their payment and personal details just once and continue to shop every time with a one-click checkout, not just on the Heat Transfer Warehouse website but on any site powered by Bolt.</p>


<p>For customers, this means speed and ease during checkout. And for the company, this gives access to a wider pool of customers that come along with the Bolt network. 56% of their current transactions are powered by Bolt’s one-click CheckoutOS and <a href="https://bolt.com/blog/bolt-product-page-checkout/" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">Product Page Checkout</a>, customers have observed a 38% increase in checkout speed. This new and improved experience has also translated into a 122% higher conversion rate with Bolt accounts over guest checkout.</p>
<h3><strong>When the Customer Is Happy, Everyone Is</strong></h3>
<p>Heat Transfer Warehouse has always had a culture of constant growth and change.<br />
There’s not a month that goes by when there aren&#8217;t new products, new lines, or new ideas, the company is always in growth mode.</p>


“Bolt is an ideal partner for businesses with a growth mindset because they continually innovate with new features and services,” Anton noted. 

<p>While continuing to scale the business, a key success metric for Anton is customer experience. Bolt helps him tick these boxes by offering his customers a hassle-free and quick checkout process, the flexibility to use multiple payment options, and improved order approval rates through the Bolt platform.</p>


Bolt Accounts created (since site launch)

of retail sales made from Bolt Account Shoppers in 2021

Bolt One Click transactions (since site launch)

Heat Transfer Warehouse

 Dwayne Siever

Higher Conversion Rate

<h2>How Real Milk Paint improved their checkout experience and stopped customer attrition.</h2>
<p>When Dwayne Siever, an antique furniture restorer, found that modern day paints did not render the authentic historical finish he was looking for, he set on to solve the problem. During his research, he realized that the difference in look, feel, and texture was because milk paints were used in earlier days. He then started to experiment with small batches of milk paint using traditional, natural ingredients and applied it on his antiques. The result was brilliant with the end piece staying true to its original character.</p>
<p>Soon, word spread, and many craftsmen and renovators showed interest in milk paints. In 1995, the Real Milk Paint Co. was launched with 10 colors. Still a family-owned business, it’s grown to offer 56 colors of eco-friendly, sustainable, and non-toxic milk paints with a large B2B and B2C client base across the US.</p>


“Having a website that people can navigate and checkout easily has always been at the forefront [of our priorities].”

<h3>The checkout niggles</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.realmilkpaint.com/'" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">Real Milk Paint</a> relies on a strong digital presence. Shane Siever, customer service head and social media manager of Real Milk Paint, and son of the founder, Dwayne Siever, points out that as milk paints are a niche market, “online is the best space for it because people can find it.” He adds, “Having a website that people can navigate and checkout easily has always been at the forefront [of our priorities].”</p>
<p>Real Milk Paint has a great product that resonated with customers and a strong research and development (R&amp;D) function. But they knew they would have to quickly close the gaps with their customer’s checkout experience or customers would drift away.</p>
<p>The clunky, error-prone checkout process in their ecommerce platform posed a challenge. For instance, a customer would add their information to an order only to find all of it wiped out. There were many glitches that customers encountered during checkout and frustrated calls poured in. Siever says, “It definitely caused a lot of shoppers to leave and move on to different products. Before Bolt, we had a 36.9% checkout completion rate which is average. It was time to improve our customer’s checkout experience.&#8221;</p>


 “One of the first things we noticed after moving to Bolt was the lack of negative calls. The customer service team no longer needed to manually process orders to circumvent the hurdles during checkout.”

<h3><strong>Introducing Bolt into the equation</strong></h3>
<p>As Real Milk Paint evaluated alternative options, it zeroed in on the Bolt platform due to two main factors. First was the ability to offer a seamless checkout experience to their customers. The idea of having an “Amazon-like checkout” without having to spend “trillions of dollars” was an attractive feature that was hard to say no to.</p>
<p>Second, Siever was reassured by the percentage-based incentive model of Bolt. To him, this clearly indicated a “symbiotic relationship” in which “when we do better, you do better.” The underlying confidence that Bolt would strive to continually improve the platform and make the overall service and experience better, faster, and flawless, brought Real Milk Paint into the Bolt Network in late 2019.</p>


<p>&#8220;We have seen an average of 63% higher conversion rate when it comes to shoppers who use a Bolt account vs. those that use guest checkout&#8221;</p>


<h3><b>The Bolt impact</b></h3>
<p>Siever recalls, “One of the first things we noticed after moving to Bolt was the lack of negative calls. The customer service team no longer needed to manually process orders to circumvent the hurdles during checkout.” Within the first 90 days of implementing Bolt, they saw a 66% increase when it came to completed checkouts; a shift from 36.9% to 54.6%.</p>
<p>Although checkout was the main problem they were trying to solve, Siever found out that the benefits extended to payment and fraud functions as well. With the ecommerce platform doubling up as the payment processor, they didn’t need multiple vendors, and the seamless integration and handover from one function to another delivered all they wanted as “a complete package.” They don’t encounter many instances of fraud now, but Siever explains, <a href="https://bolt.com/fraud-protection/" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">Bolt fraud protection</a> is like having insurance, it provides peace of mind.”</p>
<p>Real Milk Paint has been able to tap into the potential of <a href="https://bolt.com/accounts/" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">Bolt accounts</a>. They’ve noticed their wholesalers and retailers take advantage of creating a Bolt account which seamlessly saves their information during the first checkout and registers them for future one-click checkouts. By tracking the identity and purchase history of these B2B clients through Bolt accounts, Real Milk Paint automatically applies customized discounts, which in turn encourages customers to opt for repeat purchases. “We have seen an average of 63% higher conversion rate when it comes to shoppers who use a Bolt account vs. those that use guest checkout,” noted Siever.</p>
<p>And then there was the added power of the <a href="https://bolt.com/network/" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">Bolt Network</a>. Shoppers can complete a one-click checkout on any site powered by Bolt. Siever commented, “Over the past two years, Real Milk Paint can equate 3% of our new customers to shoppers that have an existing Bolt account.”</p>


<h3>Facing uncertainties with the Bolt partnership</h3>
<p>Siever recalls the shocking year that 2020 was, which brought a 3X increase in digital transactions overnight. But the Real Milk Paint team was ready this time. Their concern that the spike in volumes would throw up surprises, resulting in losing orders and momentum, was put to rest as Bolt was able to scale up to the new normal smoothly.</p>
<p>This year, though the volumes have come down from the drastic jump of 2020, the baseline has gone up and Bolt continues to support the Real Milk Paint website through this transition.</p>
<p>As Real Milk Paint charts promising plans for the future—introducing newer product lines, expanding to international markets, and building a new manufacturing facility—they can move ahead knowing that the Bolt partnership will be the backbone in their initiatives.</p>


 Bolt One Click Transactions (since site launch)

Of retail sales made from Bolt account shoppers (2021)

Real Milk Paint

Kyle Baker

<h2>How PuppySpot Reduced their Manual Review Time from Days to Minutes</h2>
<p>In the competitive and crowded pet industry, <a href="https://www.puppyspot.com/" _blank="" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">PuppySpot</a> has emerged as an industry leader due to their extreme care for the very core of their business: puppies. Originally founded in 2005 in South Florida, PuppySpot is now headquartered in Jersey City and has grown to include employees spread throughout the United States.</p>
<p>This growth can be attributed to a number of facets of their business. From their intensive breeder screening process to their scientific advisory board made up of veterinarians and specialists, the team has thought through every detail. And they not only stand behind their due diligence with a 10 year health guarantee, but are always available to support PuppySpot families throughout the dog’s lifetime.</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9U4bs04JUM8" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<h3><strong>Early Growing Pains Highlight a Need for a Solution</strong></h3>
<p>In the early days, after graduating from faxing 15 page documents to customers to take orders, PuppySpot began using Payflow Pro to process payments. However, they quickly discovered that it was unreliable, repeatedly broke, and offered no form of fraud prevention. As Kyle Baker, VP Product at PuppySpot, remembers, “we had challenges with basic payment processing for a long time. In particular, the fact that we are a high fraud risk because our price point is pretty high for puppies.” Payflow Pro also left a lot of questions unanswered for the team. There was no control over the experience or analytics and customers were redirected to a hosted checkout page. PuppySpot lost any visibility into the process and was left hoping customers successfully converted.</p>
<p>In addition to payment processing, the team also began to outgrow their approach to fraud prevention. PuppySpot used LexisNexis InstantID to follow up on orders that looked suspicious. However, that was an incredibly manual process where their internal team ran checks to obtain the LexisNexis score. Even with these checks in place, the root problem wasn’t solved. “If we were able to verify that the person and the address matched, we would move on with the transaction,” Kyle explains. “But even then, there were holes in that and we were getting fraudulent transactions going through. If we had a low LexisNexis score, we really didn’t have any good options.”</p>
<p>Even worse, the team noticed that the level of fraud they were witnessing was growing more and more sophisticated. “We’ve had some targeted fraud rings,” Kyle explains. “It became clear that we weren’t just dealing with intermittent individuals attempting to scam us, but we’re actually being targeted by coordinated groups.”</p>
<p>And it’s important to highlight that fraud in relation to PuppySpot’s business is very different from other companies. “For us, fraud is not just a line item on our spreadsheets. Fraud is very personal because we are sending a living, breathing animal to its forever home,” Kyle explains. “We want to make sure it grows up and matures, is well taken care of, and we know who has that puppy. Beyond just the financial hit in successful fraud instances, there’s a living animal out there that we’re responsible for that we don’t know if it’s being cared for properly.”</p>
<h3><strong>The Search for the Right Solution</strong></h3>
<p>Once the team decided it was time to find a better solution, they began looking at the big names in payment processing. However, they quickly discovered that the level of service they were looking for wasn’t common practice. They were also consistently referred to third parties for fraud prevention instead of finding a solution that addressed all of their needs in one.</p>
<p>When the team started looking into fraud solutions specifically, they also were left underwhelmed. “We found that fraud partners would either require us to take on a burden of PCI compliance that we weren’t comfortable with or were too invasive for our customers,” Kyle explains. “Some were recommending that we require social security from our customers or we had the flip side, where we had solutions that didn’t seem that much better than what we had with LexisNexis—where we were manually doing these instantIDs and even then there were plenty of holes and gaps.”</p>
<p>Regardless of payment or fraud provider, the integration process also seemed to create unnecessary friction. The team understood that any decision would require integration with a payment provider, a separate integration with a fraud service, and the hope that these integrations worked and ran smoothly together. However, PuppySpot liked the appeal of selecting and integrating solely with Bolt to address all of their needs. As Kyle sums up choosing Bolt, “it was just the easiest solution we could find on the market.”</p>


We’ve been able to be a lot more efficient now that Bolt is handling all the fraud checks.

<h3><strong>Introducing Bolt</strong></h3>
<p>Chargeback management and improving operational efficiency were two of the biggest areas of focus for the team. As Kyle explains, “when Jonathan Diaz joined our sales operations team, it was a very manual team performing a lot of repetitive data entry scenarios and one of those was our former fraud prevention process.” Jonathan adds on, “in one short sentence, thank you to Bolt.”</p>
<p>Jonathan, who is one of the closest team members to the manual review process and remembers PuppySpot’s previous processes well, explains “it was very manual. We had to go pretty much order by order. Whenever the billing address and shipping address didn’t match, it would take an extra one to two days just to get all the information from the customer that we needed to make the decision to move the sale forward—only for it to possibly still be a chargeback and fraud.”</p>
<p>However, with Bolt in place, those time-consuming manual review processes have greatly reduced. “We’ve been able to be a lot more efficient now that Bolt is handling all the fraud checks,” Jonathan explains. “You’re taking the load off of the fraud checks so we can focus on everything else that we’re handling.”</p>
<p>In addition to handling the heavy lifting of fraud prevention, Bolt continuously serves as a partner by turning merchant feedback into new features built to address those requests. Specifically, PuppySpot partnered with Bolt to design <a href="https://bolt.com/all-features/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">Rejected Order Insights</a>, a feature that gives merchants visibility into why an order was rejected. The PuppySpot team reviewed wireframes, participated in the beta process before the feature was generally available, and provided invaluable feedback. Kyle explains, “when you added the reasons (Rejected Order Insights) into the Bolt interface, that was extremely helpful.” Jonathan quickly adds, “yes, extremely.” Instead of the one to two day window that Jonathan and his team regularly experienced, “within seven minutes we’re able to review orders now on average,” he explains.</p>
<p>It’s not just about fraud prevention for bad orders, but also streamlining approval of good orders as well. Kyle explains, “the unsung hero here is all the people that, in the past, we would have done additional checks on that we no longer need to inconvenience with our former fraud process because they’re automatically being approved by Bolt.”</p>


The unsung hero here is all the people that, in the past, we would have done additional checks on that we no longer need to inconvenience with our former fraud process because they’re automatically being approved by Bolt.

<h3>The Network Effect: Driving Additional Revenue</h3>
<p>And speaking of approving good customers, PuppySpot has also seen significant revenue come from being part of the <a href="https://bolt.com/network/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">Bolt Network</a>. As a Bolt customer, PuppySpot has immediate access to Bolt’s entire network of shoppers with <a href="https://bolt.com/accounts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff;">Bolt Accounts</a>. Accessing this network of Bolt Account shoppers brings immediate value to retailers like PuppySpot, because they’re able to give shoppers a fast and frictionless checkout that results in a better customer experience for their shoppers and increased revenue for themselves. In fact, 10.5% of PuppySpot’s retail sales have come from Bolt Account shoppers alone.</p>
<p>Not only is Bolt Fraud Protection key in protecting PuppySpot from fraud and approving more orders, but access to the Bolt Network continues to drive customers to PuppySpot. When asked how Bolt has exceeded his expectations, Kyle sums it up “you’ve exceeded my expectations in quite a few [areas] actually. Relationship management has been great, you’ve been very responsive to our product requests, you were very easy to integrate with, and the fraud prevention has been great.”</p>


Of retail sales made from Bolt Account shoppers

PuppySpot

Jason Hanan

of monthly transaction revenue from Bolt accounts

<h2>How Pro Audio LA removed fraud from the equation</h2>
<p>Pro Audio LA takes their passion for music beyond just the gear. Jason Hanan, President at Pro Audio LA, likes to joke, “we’re the only company in our industry audacious enough to get into manufacturing as well as retail.” Joking aside, these two areas go hand in hand and serve Pro Audio LA’s mission: make better music. They fulfill this promise to their customers by offering a one-stop shopping experience for everything from custom cabling and integration to retail equipment to onsite services for acoustics, recording studios, and podcasting. Although they primarily serve the Los Angeles market in terms of services, their retail business supports the entire United States, and their wholesale and custom cabling is offered worldwide.</p>


“We Don’t Worry About Fraud Anymore”

<h3>Early challenges</h3>
<p>Serving as that one-stop shop for their customers has proven to be a wildly successful business model for Pro Audio LA. However, just like any flourishing, young company, they experienced some early growing pains. Specifically, the amount of time and money lost due to chargebacks when they were transitioning into a retail business became a concern. “As a young business, you’re so happy to have that sale and the last thing you think about is a scammer committing credit card fraud,” Jason explains. “Learning that lesson the hard way caused fear of bigger business and wondering what if we not only lose the money, but we also lose the merchandise?”</p>
<p>Over time and with some more experience under their belts, Jason and his team became more savvy and began to understand what red flags looked like. However, even as these red flags became more obvious to the team, they had very manual procedures in place in order to vet transactions. Even with the right set of procedures and protocols in place, it didn’t take long for fraudsters to learn and adapt to the newest technology. Jason recalls, “we were putting a tremendous amount of time into it. When something is wrong, it is extremely stressful for an employee who is making judgement calls based on experience and a set of procedures and protocols.”</p>
<p>As the ecommerce business started building, Jason vigilantly paid closer attention to the customer experience and the increasing boldness of fraudsters. “Scam artists are always getting a step ahead of the game and the technology. They’re very clever,” Jason recalls. “We had instances where fraudsters were bold enough to exchange emails with his team or hop on a phone call to really make them feel confident that these were genuine orders.”</p>


<h3>The search for the right solution, enter Bolt</h3>
<p>Although there wasn’t a particular incident or chargeback amount that led Jason to look for a more permanent solution, every six months to a year something would happen that would encourage him to evaluate different options in the market. He looked at various solutions, including Signifyd, but it wasn’t the holistic approach he was hoping to find. These solutions still required everything to be perfectly aligned in order for Pro Audio LA to be fully protected. As Jason recalls, “how does that really help me? I’m still stressed. I’m still worried about it.”</p>
<p>After evaluating a few solutions and feeling underwhelmed, Jason continued his search for combating fraud and found Bolt from a quick Google search. Bolt stood out as a company that was able to tackle fraud in a way that was different from its competitors. “I could tell that Bolt was doing something different and it wasn’t just revolutionary, it was evolutionary,” Jason explains. “Bolt looked at the checkout process and the interaction with the checkout process from the customer side as an intrinsic layer to stopping fraud.” Jason was familiar with how other companies analyzed data and ballistics on the backend of a transaction, but to see a fraud solution actually incorporate how customers interacted with their cart and checkout on a website was something entirely new to fraud prevention.</p>
<p>Since implementing Bolt, Jason has noticed a huge difference in how the company feels when large orders come in. “We don’t worry about fraud anymore. We’re no longer conflicted about receiving a big purchase, and we don’t stress about it. We say ‘great, this is awesome! Bolt says it’s good.’” In addition to viewing Bolt as a partner, Jason has also been impressed with how that partnership goes both ways. Specifically around one of Bolt’s newer fraud features, <a href="https://bolt.com/all-features/" span="" style="color: #ffffff;" rel="noopener"><strong>Order Re-Reviews</strong></a>, which enable retailers to provide Bolt with additional information and request re-reviews of orders that were declined. These are useful to merchants if they have past order history with a customer or additional insights they can supply Bolt. After submitting a re-review, “it seems like within minutes sometimes you have made a judgement call,” Jason explains. “On that level, it feels like a partnership. You trust our experience and we trust your experience.”</p>


<h3><b>More than a fraud solution</b></h3>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<p>Although fraud was what first brought Bolt to his attention, it didn’t take long for Jason to see the immense value of Bolt as a solution that could address all of his ecommerce needs. Jason was impressed with how Bolt improved the checkout process to make it as quick, easy, and painless for customers as possible, particularly repeat customers who can check out with one button. Jason touts, “on top of that, Bolt is processing credit card payments and vetting transactions for fraud. Bolt is literally handling the whole process for us.” Consolidating all of Pro Audio LA’s needs down to a single vendor has proven to be incredibly valuable.</p>
<p>Additionally, Jason has also seen the value of <a href="https://bolt.com/accounts/" target="_blank" span="" style="color: #ffffff;" rel="noopener"><strong>Bolt accounts</strong></a>, which give shoppers a one-click checkout experience anywhere in the Bolt network. Jason explains, “as Bolt penetrates with more checkout carts across the Internet, it’s just going to be easier and easier for first-time customers to feel like repeat customers.” He attributes this to the millions of active shoppers already in the Bolt network who recognize and use their Bolt accounts. Jason continues, “whether or not they’ve shopped with Pro Audio LA, they have confidence with a Bolt account and can check out super fast. That’s obviously better for them and will lead to more successful checkouts, more orders placed, and should help increase business.” In fact, Pro Audio LA’s conversion rate for shoppers with Bolt accounts is 34.1% higher than shoppers who use guest checkout. Going one step further, 20.3% of Pro Audio LA’s total transaction volume comes from shoppers with Bolt accounts.</p>
<p>Jason isn’t the only one at Pro Audio LA who feels the positive impact Bolt has had on the business. Jason explains, “if you ask my employees what they think of Bolt, they would literally open a beer and say ‘my gosh, this made my job so much less stressful to count on them and not deal with this on our own.’” Just like Pro Audio LA serves as a one-stop shop for its customers, Bolt has been able to return the favor by serving as a one-stop shop for all of Pro Audio LA’s needs.</p>


Of monthly transaction revenue from Bolt accounts

Higher conversion rate for shoppers in the Bolt Network

Pro Audio LA

Executive

Increase in order approval rate

<h2>How Drone Nerds increased their order approval rate by 9.4%</h2>
<p>As the largest distributor of drones in the United States, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://www.dronenerds.com/"> <span style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;">Drone Nerds</span></a></strong></span> has built their business by providing high quality drones and customer service to match. With products for amateur videographers to professional surveyors, from small businesses to enterprise corporations, Drone Nerds not only lives up to their namesake when it comes to drone technology, but is well-versed in the needs across its customer base as well.</p>
<p>The company first opened its doors in 2014 with a small team of 3 employees. Over the past 7 years, they’ve grown their staff up to a team of 60 while continuing to expand their extensive product range with the largest inventory of drones in the country.</p>


"In addition to everything that we were doing, verifying orders in a timely manner was a little tough because everybody was wearing 15 different hats...We’ve come a long way with the support from partners like Bolt."

<h3>Increased Exposure to Fraud Leads Drone Nerds to Bolt</h3>
<p>In the early days, Rick McInnes and Robbie Weitzner wore every metaphorical hat in the book to ensure their business ran smoothly and customers were happy. One of these many responsibilities included fraud prevention and reviewing customer orders. As Drone Nerds recalls, “it was just us trying to verify these customers ourselves. So in addition to everything that we were doing in general, verifying orders in a timely manner was a little tough because everybody was wearing 15 different hats.”</p>
<p>Juggling the mounting demands of a fast-growing company began to illuminate a need for a more permanent fraud solution. As Drone Nerds explains, “you’re crossing your fingers because you’re like, ‘okay, I hope this is not fraud.’” In 2018, Drone Nerds selected Bolt as their fraud solution and as Drone Nerds describes the relationship since then, “we’ve come a long way with the support from partners like Bolt.”</p>


<h3>Introducing Declined Order Recovery</h3>
<p>Since implementing Bolt, Drone Nerds has provided invaluable insights into new product features and functionality which have helped influence Bolt’s product roadmap. “When we give feedback, you guys do something about it,” Drone Nerds explains. “We appreciate that—your ability to make changes.” So when Bolt introduced its <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://bolt.com/blog/declined-order-recovery/"> <span style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;">Declined Order Recovery</span></a></strong></span> features, a suite of fraud features dedicated to turning false positives into order approvals, some of the specific requests Drone Nerds made were addressed.</p>
<p>Although false positives, which occur when legitimate orders are incorrectly declined, should happen infrequently, they unfortunately are inevitable. And in the drone industry, where average order values are significantly higher than other industries, declining a legitimate order can mean leaving significant money on the table.</p>
<p>Bolt’s Declined Order Recovery features—which include Rejected Order Insights, Order Re-Reviews, and Order Verification Emails—target this specific false positive problem by improving transparency around declined orders and giving both shoppers and retailers actionable ways to overturn any false positives that do occur.</p>


<h3>The Declined Order Recovery Difference</h3>
<blockquote></blockquote>
<p>Of Bolt’s three new fraud features, which are all available as part of <a href="https://bolt.com/fraud-protection/"><span style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Bolt Fraud Protection</strong></span></a>, Drone Nerds saw the biggest change in their daily operations thanks to <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://bolt.com/all-features/#fraud-protection"><span style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;">Order Re-Reviews</span></a></strong></span>. As the name implies, Order Re-Reviews allow retailers to simply request an additional review of an order that has been declined. Instead of filing and managing multiple support tickets, retailers can request Bolt’s in-house team of dedicated risk analysts to take a closer look at transactions and attach any relevant information (such as past order history) directly into the transaction details page of Bolt’s Merchant Dashboard. Drone Nerds describes “the ability to go in there and do it ourselves,” as a key value add for Order Re-Reviews. “It’s a wonderful tool that you provide to us.”</p>
<p>From shopper’s perspective, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="https://bolt.com/all-features/#fraud-protection"><span style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;">Order Verification Emails</span></a></strong></span>, notify shoppers before their orders are permanently rejected. Customers are sent an email explaining that their orders have temporarily been put on hold and prompt them to reach out to verify their orders. This improved communication and transparency with customers has helped Drone Nerds improve their overall customer experience. “They aren’t like ‘hey, where’s my order?’ after a couple of days because nobody reached out,” Drone Nerds explains. “So the initial email of ‘hey, something’s up’ typically triggers people to respond. It’s definitely great—just keeping people in the loop in general is always good.”</p>
<p>In fact, since enabling the Declined Order Recovery features, Drone Nerds has seen their order approval rate increase from 81.2% to 90.6%. Drone Nerds describes the partnership with Bolt, “you always listen. We bring up suggestions and you are always receptive. A good partner for sure, probably one of the best we’ve had.”</p>


Drone Nerds

Katie Ouaknine

Conversion rate for shoppers in the Bolt Network

<h2>How Badgley Mischka increased conversion and average order value by double digits through the Bolt Network</h2>
<p>Badgley Mischka creates glamorous, stylish, and wearable evening wear and accessories. Their red-carpet-ready dresses have been worn by the world’s most incredible women—from Oprah to Jane Fonda, Rihanna to Taylor Swift, Leslie Jones to Kate McKinnon, and <a href="https://www.badgleymischka.com/red-carpet/ " target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="color: #ffffff;">more</span></a>. But Badgley Mischka isn’t just for celebrities; their bridal gowns, cocktail dresses, and everyday blazers and blouses are designed (and priced) with the everyday fashionista in mind.</p>


“I wish all of our customers could be in the Bolt Network. It increases their checkout conversion and just makes everything easier.”

<h3>High fashion meets hard times</h3>
<p>Enter 2020, which was a year of both challenge and transformation for Badgley Mischka’s online business. The challenge wasn’t just that the economy was ravaged by recession (although that was, of course, significant). Clothing retailers, including Badgley Mischka, were hit particularly hard as month over month dips in sales were <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/289783/us-retail-apparel-store-sales-on-a-monthly-basis/#:~:text=In%20December%202019%2C%20U.S.%20apparel,(COVID%2D19)%20pandemic. " target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="color: #ffffff;">as dramatic as 74%</span></a> in the US.</p>
<p>For Badgley Mischka in particular, the shift in Americans’ daily sartorial preferences posed another challenge. With <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/12/09/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-has-and-hasnt-changed-the-way-americans-work/ " target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="color: #ffffff;">71% of employed adults</span></a> working from home during pandemic-related lockdowns (up from <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/12/09/how-the-coronavirus-outbreak-has-and-hasnt-changed-the-way-americans-work/ " target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="color: #ffffff;">20% before the pandemic</span></a>, according to Pew research), tapered sweatpants were elevated to the level of business casual. And as <a href="https://www.brides.com/american-wedding-study-5079338 " target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="color: #ffffff;">66% of engaged couples</span></a> postponed weddings, the appetite for formal dresses and satin stilettos was greatly reduced.</p>


<h3>Immediate impact with a well-timed partnership</h3>
<p>When Badgley Mischka partnered with Bolt in January 2020, they were already charging ahead with new initiatives to grow their business and give their shoppers a flawless ecommerce experience. The first priority was to fix the checkout experience for their customers by removing roadblocks to checkout conversion.</p>
<p>Katie Ouaknine, owner of Badgley Mischka’s online store, recalls that “we were having a huge drop-off at checkout. Our customer intake form before shipping and billing was deterring customers so much that our conversion rate was in the garbage.” Bolt’s checkout is designed to fix that—fewer forms, no redirects, more payment options, and a one-click checkout for existing shoppers. “Since [implementing] Bolt,” Ouaknine continues, “we’ve definitely rebounded.&#8221;</p>
<p>Like most customer-centric retailers, conversion rates weren’t the only thing on Ouaknine’s mind. Especially after March 2020, when shoppers across the country began to feel the impact of a deeply shaken economy. As shoppers began to cut back on all but the most essential spending, brands had to work that much harder to maintain relationships with their customers and forge connections with new shoppers. If a fashion enthusiast was to buy just one pair of shoes in 2020, how could Badgley Mischka ensure it was one of theirs?</p>
<p>Luckily, the partnership with Bolt was well-timed. Because when Badgley Mischka signed up with Bolt, they gained instant access to a global network of millions of shoppers within the Bolt Network.</p>


<h3>Introducing the Bolt Network</h3>
<blockquote><p>“When you see trends across brands that you like&#8230;it makes it feel like all the puzzle pieces fit together.” &#8211; Katie Ouaknine, Owner of Badgley Mischka Web</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>How Bolt Accounts deliver a higher converting checkout experience</strong><br />
Shoppers can choose to create a Bolt Account with a single click during checkout. By creating an account, shoppers save their payment and personal information once so they don’t have to enter their name and credit card every single time they buy, say&#8230;a new pair of shoes (like any of <a href="https://www.badgleymischka.com/shoes/ " target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="color: #ffffff;">these beauties</span></a>). No login, no password, just a lightning fast, one-click checkout on any site powered by Bolt. Shoppers are catching on—the Bolt Network is growing by 250k shoppers per month.</p>
<p><strong>How the Bolt Network is a win for shoppers (and retailers)</strong><br />
It doesn’t get easier than one click, so it’s no surprise that shoppers in the network convert at a higher rate. Here’s an example: if a shopper created an account during their first checkout with Badgley Mischka, then they get a one-click checkout when they return to buy, say, a <a href="https://www.badgleymischka.com/runway-micro-sequin-trench-smoking-jacket/ " target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="color: #ffffff;">gorgeous new jacket</span></a>. In another scenario, if another shopper created an account while shopping at Milk Makeup, but has never shopped with Badgley Mischka before, they also get a one-click checkout even on their first purchase at Badgley Mischka. Shoppers in the network get a lightning fast checkout, and retailers in the network benefit from higher conversion rates. “It unifies storefronts across the internet,” as Ouaknine describes.</p>


<h3>How did the Bolt Network work for Badgley Mischka?</h3>
<p>By enabling one-click account creation and one-click checkout with Bolt Accounts, Badgley Mischka saw higher conversion rates and higher average order value, with behavioral stats that point to the power of cross-network experiences.</p>
<p><strong>80% conversion rate</strong><br />
for shoppers in the Bolt Network</p>
<p><strong>15% higher average order value</strong><br />
on transactions from shoppers in the Bolt Network on the Bolt Network in Q4 — a crucial time over the holidays</p>
<p><strong>44% of transactions</strong><br />
came from shoppers with Bolt Accounts</p>
<p><strong>4% of transactions from the network</strong><br />
In December, 4% of transactions came from new, cross-network shoppers</p>


<h3>The future is looking fashionable</h3>
<p>Despite being squeezed by a year that killed so many retail brands, Badgley Mischka is better equipped than ever to grow. They’re charging forward with a new website (boasting a fully restructured backend), ramping up a digital ads strategy across new channels and platforms, and removing operational roadblocks to ensure that new clothing lines, which had been held up in the first few months of lockdowns, could be shipped without delay.</p>
<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re really looking forward to a huge surge in people wanting to dress up because they haven&#8217;t been able to in a long time,” Ouaknine says. “From the fashion world, we&#8217;ve heard that there’s going to be another roaring twenties, a return to the glitz in the glam and the big parties. And we&#8217;re gearing up for it.” The Bolt Network will be here for it.</p>


Higher average order value on transactions from shoppers in the Bolt Network in Q4 — a crucial time over the holidays

Of transactions came from shoppers with Bolt Accounts

Of transactions came from new, cross-network shoppers in December 2020

Badgley Mischka

Nick Woodhouse

Authentic Brands Group Partners with Bolt

<h2>Authentic Brands Group Partners with Bolt to Power Forever 21’s Online Checkout Experience</h2>
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<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Watch Nick Woodhouse, President and CMO, ABG discuss why ABG is investing in Bolt to power its massive brand portfolio.</p>
<h3><strong>About Authentic Brands Group</strong></h3>
<p>With a portfolio full of recognizable brands including Lucky Brand, Brooks Brothers, Aéropostale, Juicy Couture, Nautica, and Sports Illustrated, just to name a few, <span style="color: #ffffff;"><a href="https://www.authenticbrandsgroup.com/" style="color: #ffffff;">Authentic Brands Group (ABG)</a></span> is well-versed in the world of retail giants. However, they haven’t limited themselves to the world of retail; ABG has also expanded into the entertainment business through which they own the estates of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, the Muahmmad Ali brand, and the Shaquille O’Neal brand through a joint venture with the big man himself.</p>


"We chose Bolt because they’re able to create a cross-brand experience across all of our platforms, while still maintaining the individual tech stack or ecosystem for each of our partners."

<h3>Forever 21: Accelerating Its Digital Transformation with Bolt</h3>
<p>Being fiercely motivated to unlock the storytelling of a brand, ABG has been able to take American heritage brands — like Sports Illustrated, Brooks Brothers, and Forever 21 — that have made an impact on so many individuals and generations over the years. “What’s amazing about Forever 21 is that this is a brand that has been woven into the fabric of fashion and pop culture in America and around the world,” says Woodhouse. “In many cases, if mom was a shopper there or dad was a shopper there, they’re now taking their children into Forever 21.”</p>
<p>This emphasis on the customer experience is something that grounds every business decision the team makes. Like many brands before the turn of the millennium, Forever 21 was originally rooted in brick and mortar. In the last 10-15 years, they’ve had to adapt and change business strategies to become a more digital-centric company. And specifically in the last year with the impact of COVID-19, like many online retailers have experienced, Forever 21’s digital growth has accelerated rapidly during quarantine. Providing that frictionless, rapid, and safe checkout experience for their customers is even more crucial as online sales continue to climb. As Woodhouse explains, “now more than ever, digital technology, ecommerce technology, and its connectivity to the consumer is so incredibly important.”</p>
<p>They’ve also found that because their customer base is young and tech-savvy, it’s critical to rise and meet the demands of their consumers. Their customers are adapting to new technologies faster and faster and want, as Woodhouse describes, “a frictionless experience at checkout, while, at the same time, getting the great value that Forever 21 gives them.”</p>


<h3>Bolt Accounts: Creating a Seamless Shopping Experience Across the Entire Retail Network</h3>
<p>Because Forever 21 sits inside a large and diverse portfolio of brands that ABG owns, it was important for ABG to be able to meet the specific needs of Forever 21 customers, but ensure that the technology they selected could be rolled out across key brands in the portfolio. Their consumers want options, which include a mobile-first approach for shopping, simple and consistent post-purchase experiences, and the same level of customer service they would get walking into a store and interacting with a salesperson. Across phone, tablet, computer desktop, or physical location, it was critical to the team to keep that experience consistent and seamless across all channels. As Woodhouse explains, “it has never been more important for ABG to invest in technology for a better buying experience.”</p>
<p>With more than 50 million shoppers across all of the ABG brands, the team knew that it was “paramount to us that we have a tech stack and tech ecosystem that is modernized for next generation buyers,” says Woodhouse.</p>


<h3>Enter Bolt.</h3>
<p>There were several strategic motives for choosing Bolt as their checkout technology. First, ABG needed a better and faster checkout experience across all devices, specifically mobile. It was also crucial to be able to save payment information across their brands so that shoppers could save information once and use it across all of ABG’s branded ecommerce to improve speed at checkout and reduce friction.</p>
<p>“Where Bolt really shines is it allows us to create a cross-brand shopping experience through the vast network of all of ABG’s brands,” explains Woodhouse. “That’s so important for us because ABG is a platform, and having all these brands talk to each other and having technology that speaks to all brands across a network, is so incredibly important for us.”</p>
<p>Account creation was another key area that was important for ABG to solve. With Bolt, a shopper can easily create an account and use that one account across the ecosystem of retailers who use Bolt. Unlike individual account creation on a per merchant basis, “when you have a Bolt account, it gives all Bolt shoppers a seamless experience across the entire ABG network,” explains Woodhouse.</p>
<p>Although the checkout experience and Bolt accounts were key components as to why the team decided to move forward with Bolt, it was also something unique to Bolt as a partner that stood out to the ABG team. “When I thought of why we chose Bolt, there were some specific things that Bolt provided that we have to have. That is the ability to provide agnostic technology across all of our brands,” Woodhouse recalls. “We chose Bolt because they’re able to create a cross-brand experience across all of our platforms, while still maintaining the individual tech stack or ecosystem for each of our partners.”</p>


"Checkout and fraud are just the beginning, we're going to build game changing technology together to completely redefine and change the customer experience at all ABG brands."

<h3>2021: Launching Digital Products to Redefine Its Cross-brand Shopping Experience Across All ABG Brands</h3>
<p>The ABG team is excited to seamlessly integrate Forever 21 with Bolt in preparation for the holiday season and provide an improved shopping experience to their users. But the team is already excited about the long-term vision and opportunities that Bolt will be able to provide. “Checkout and fraud are just the beginning,” Woodhouse explains. “We’re going to build game-changing technology together that will completely redefine and change our customer experience.”</p>
<p>The team is committed to continuing to delight their customers —whether that be in person or online. Looking even further ahead into the spring of 2021, ABG plans “to roll out a loyalty-based program in conjunction with Bolt that ties together the entire ABG brand universe with terrific benefits for our consumer, as well as utilizing the Bolt technology every step of the way,” Woodhouse states.</p>
<p>“We are so excited that in a partnership with Bolt, we are going to transform the consumer experience by adding products, perks, lifestyle rewards, exciting things that you never thought you would get from a conventional shopping experience,” Woodhouse explains. “That is the next evolution for the partnership of ABG and Bolt.”</p>


Checkout platform: Salesforce Commerce Cloud

Authentic Brands Group <br>Partners with Bolt

<p><span>ABG&#8217;s global portfolio spans the media, entertainment, luxe, fashion, street, home, wellness and active lifestyle sectors.</span></p>


Heather Lott

In incurred fraud losses

<h2>After years of searching for the right solution, Monster Gardens finds Bolt</h2>
<p>When <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: #ffffff;"><a href="https://monstergardens.com/?SID=f3282844083695dbeb588e55960f915e" style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;">Monster Gardens</a> </span></span>first started out of a garage in 2008, the founders only ever intended to have an online store. However, its explosive growth and customer demand for in-person shopping caught them by surprise. By 2012, in addition to managing their booming eCommerce store, they were operating in a new location with a large warehouse, office, and storefront that they’ve called home ever since.</p>
<p>Their physical location wasn’t the only aspect of their business gaining a large following either. The company’s <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: #ffffff;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/MonsterGardens" style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;">YouTube channel</a> </span></span>became a cornerstone of industry education and gained them a devoted following. Heather Lott, CFO at Monster Gardens, explains “we’ve always pushed education” which is apparent to their 68,000 YouTube subscribers — a number that well exceeds any other company in their industry.</p>


"That’s one thing I appreciate about Bolt. There’s always new and improved things and ways of doing things, it’s not the standard old merchant services I’ve had. That’s a huge improvement.”

<h3><strong>Early exposure to fraud</strong></h3>
<p>It didn’t take long for fraudsters to catch onto Monster Gardens’s success either. “You learn really quickly the hard way when you get hit with fraud,” Heather recalls. “You ask, ‘How did these people find us already? We just started.’ Over the years, that was probably our biggest challenge.”</p>
<p>In one particularly rough year, the company lost roughly $50,000 in fraud orders. Every time Monster Gardens was hit, they pivoted and put new security procedures in place to ensure fraudsters couldn’t get through. But fraudsters pivoted right alongside them and only evolved their methods used to circumvent new security measures.</p>
<p>In an attempt to get their fraud problem under control, Monster Gardens subscribed to a service that helped cross-reference addresses, phone numbers, and emails to help verify orders. But that simply ended up creating even more manual work for the team. Heather says, “that was probably an hour or two a day of researching to see if we can find anything on this person to see if it looks like a good order.” Not only was that process tedious and time-consuming, but it also wasn’t always reliable — which Heather can personally attest to. She’s had the same phone number for almost 20 years, and when she looked up herself using the service, her own phone number wasn’t listed to verify her identity.</p>


<h3><strong>Introducing Bolt</strong></h3>
<p>After years of using a service that only increased hours spent on manual reviews, an employee at Monster Gardens took a call with Bolt and recommended Heather look into the solution further. Since the team had only seen fraud scoring solutions or tools that only increased time spent on manual reviews, Heather first thought it was good to be true. “I was like ‘you actually indemnify us against fraud? Wait, no.’ I didn’t believe it. I had to look into it further because I had never found anything like that.”</p>
<p>After switching to Bolt, many of their biggest pain points — such as approving fraudulent orders or time-consuming manual reviews — were instantly addressed. As for the service they had hoped would help them verify orders but instead created even more work for the team? Heather says, “there was a lot of time spent on that and we don’t have to do that anymore.” In addition to saving countless hours during manual reviews, Bolt also helped Monster Gardens eliminate their fraud exposure. “Our rate of fraud has basically dropped to zero,” Heather explains.</p>
<p>Outside of the fraud solution itself, Monster Gardens was impressed with how hands-on and helpful the Bolt team was getting them up and running. Heather recalls during implementation, “Bolt actually helped our developers set this up on our website which most places are like ‘nope, the developers take care of it. That’s it.’ No communication once you set it up, they just have to figure it out. The overall customer service, I have to say, is great.”</p>
<p>That dedication to customer service didn’t end with implementation either. The team at Monster Gardens has appreciated how much attention Bolt places on product development and improvement. “That’s one thing I appreciate about Bolt. There’s always new and improved things and ways of doing things,” Heather explains. “It’s not the standard old merchant services I’ve had. That’s a huge improvement.”</p>


Monster Gardens

Justin Dermit

<h2>How Bolt replaced TYLER&#8217;S fraud solution and improved their checkout</h2>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Founded in 1978 in Tyler, Texas,</span> <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #ffffff;"><a href="https://www.tylerstx.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;">TYLER&#8217;S </a></span></strong><span style="font-weight: 400;">initially started out as a local tennis and running store, selling running shoes and stringing racquets for local tennis clubs. Originally named Racquet &amp; Jog, they kept their name in the flagship Tyler location while rebranding to TYLER’S when they opened a store in Austin, continuing their expansion throughout Texas. </span></p>
<h3>The move to BigCommerce</h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In 2014, it became clear to TYLER’S their ecommerce site needed an overhaul to keep up with the rise in customer demand. BigCommerce was instrumental in growing online sales, giving them a robust platform to address ecommerce issues as well as invaluable guidance, one of the best being the introduction of TYLER’S to Bolt. According to Justin Dermit, Director of eCommerce &amp; Marketing, “Bolt was a product recommendation from our account manager and, to this day, has been one of the best decisions we’ve made to help solidify our online presence and provide a more streamlined customer experience.”</span></p>


Bolt's been one of the best decisions we’ve made to help solidify our online presence and provide a more streamlined customer experience.

<h3>The Bolt difference</h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Prior to finding Bolt, TYLER’S used Signifyd as a fraud prevention tool. Even with the fraud solution in place, TYLER’S discovered countless fraudulent transactions being approved without their knowledge, even after some of the products had already shipped. “Based on the rate of chargebacks we were receiving, we quickly realized that Signifyd was not an optimal solution for long term growth.” As fraudulent activities were on the rise, Justin recalls “We reached a point that we knew our legitimate customers were being negatively affected.” In some cases, loyal customers were unable to successfully checkout. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">TYLER’S began looking at other vendors and, as Justin describes, “Bolt really stuck out as a key differentiator at the time.” Through his research, Justin and his team realized that many other companies solved only one piece of the puzzle, similar to their Signifyd solution. With Bolt, however, the concept of having checkout and fraud packaged together allowed the TYLER’S team to improve their customer experience with an enhanced checkout platform</span></p>


<h3>Keeping staff and customers happy</h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It was important to TYLER’S to find a solution that would not only streamline the workflow for their staff (who often spent several hours a day combing through manual reviews) but also reassure legitimate customers that the Bolt checkout was safe and secure. One of the key features for TYLER’S was how easy Bolt made it for customers to place orders; a smooth, fast mobile experience featuring a one-click checkout for returning shoppers to ensure a focus on what matters most: the customers. The improved checkout hasn’t gone unnoticed by TYLER’S customers as they regularly receive customer feedback regarding how much their simple checkout experience has improved. “All the touchpoints of having a fast, simple checkout and not having to sit there for hours on end looking at manual reviews…I think it has been an absolute game changer for tylerstx.com,” says Justin.</span></p>


Tyler’s

Executive at

<h2>How Bolt helped Buy Insulation Products remove fraud from the equation</h2>
<p><span>True to their namesake, </span><em><a href="http://buyinsulationproducts.com/"><span style="color: #ffffff;"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Buy Insulation Products</span></strong></span></a></em><span> (est. 2007) was one of the first companies that allowed consumers to purchase insulation products online. Historically, these large, bulky items hadn’t been available for online purchase. By filling this hole in the market,</span><i><span> Buy Insulation Products</span></i><span> helped homeowners and contractors streamline their projects, all while offering unmatched customer support along the way. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The reason for the company’s sustained growth? Listening directly to customer feedback. Their customer service team continuously receives calls or emails from customers inquiring about new products or expressing interest in items that aren’t currently carried. The company prides itself on supporting its customers and one of the key ways they do this is by turning customer requests into newly stocked products.</span></p>
<h3>The first exposure to fraud</h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As any company who has experienced rapid growth knows, quick expansion doesn’t come without its share of challenges. </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Buy Insulation Products</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> found themselves not only trying to keep up with the high demand from customers, but also trying to keep up with their increased exposure to fraud. In the early days, they struggled confidently approving large orders due to the lack of a fraud solution. One key incident that resulted in a fraudulent credit card charge particularly felt risky. As their team recalls, “just typing the credit card number in doesn’t mean you’re actually going to get those funds. That was our first awakening on fraud.” Eventually, that first exposure turned into what felt like a sustained attack. “We were getting hit once a month for $500, $1000 in fraudulent charges here or there and we just kind of felt we were vulnerable and that’s not a good feeling.” </span></p>


“Bolt is like that warm blanket that makes everything feel better.”

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Prior to finding Bolt, the burden of manual reviews fell entirely on the shoulders of the staff. The team looked at anything they could to verify the legitimacy of transactions and often found themselves going as far as looking at property tax records to check if the bill to and ship to information matched. However, that level of attention to detail not only wasn’t scalable, but it also wasn’t always effective. When the team wasn’t able to obtain all of the information they needed to verify the transaction, they would still release the order and wait nervously hoping that the transaction wasn’t disputed. As a company who is in control of all facets of their business </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">—</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> from advertising to shipping </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">—</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> it was important to </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Buy Insulation Products</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> to take control of their exposure to fraud.</span></p>
<h3>Enter Bolt</h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Bolt was able to eliminate fraud headaches for good. Instead of spending Saturday nights manually reviewing every order that came through, the team could spend time focusing on other facets of their business. “Now, I have Bolt to tell me ‘hey, this is good, that’s bad’ and I can focus on other things,” says one executive. “I have to worry about fulfilling the order, I don’t have to worry about ‘hey, do I need to look this up to see if this guy is legit or if he’s scamming me.’ It really allows us to do what we’re supposed to do and you guys, with your algorithm, you guys know. You’ve got me covered on that end.” With Bolt, not only was </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Buy Insulation Products</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> able to reduce their manual review time from countless hours a week down to 0 hours per week, but they confidently approved more orders with a 98.5% order approval rate.</span></p>


<h3>More than a fraud solution</h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Although </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Buy Insulation Products</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;"> initially turned to Bolt for a fraud solution, they quickly realized the need to update their checkout process. Customer centricity is at the core of their business and their current checkout was creating unnecessary fiction for good customers and stood in the way of placing orders. They received several phone calls from customers trying to place orders that were unable to complete their purchases due to their current checkout. As the company recalls, “we would lose orders, sometimes big orders, and that’s disappeared. Those calls have stopped 100%.” Bolt’s approach of ensuring good customers have streamlined checkout experiences while ensuring fraudsters can’t place orders really resonated with the company.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">“I’d rather pay a little more just for the ease, just for the comfort, just for that nice feeling,” says </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Buy Insulation Products</span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">. “Bolt is like that warm blanket that makes everything feel better.” Without having to worry about the legitimacy of an order, the team at </span><i><span style="font-weight: 400;">Buy Insulation Products </span></i><span style="font-weight: 400;">can now spend 100% of their resources on order fulfillment.</span></p>


Buy Insulation Products

Sara Kim

Reduction in online checkout time

<h2>How Bolt helped Akira transform their checkout into a customer-centric digital experience</h2>
<p><span style="color: #ffffff;"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.shopakira.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;">AKIRA </a></span></strong></span>was founded nearly 20 years ago as the local destination of choice for Chicago women to buy outfits for their big nights out. Since then, it has expanded to over 30 locations across the midwest and an extraordinarily fast-growing ecommerce brand.</p>
<p>At the core of all this growth is their dedication to providing an incomparable customer service experience from first interaction all the way through to return purchase. Over the past two years, they’ve built out an entirely vertically-integrated system that’s transformed their ecommerce strategy. While their competitors take weeks to deliver a package, they’re always able to ensure their package arrives before the weekend. All orders ship out the same day they’re placed, often resulting in same-day delivery. And it’s not just their fulfillment system: their social media feed is inundated with happy customers commenting about how incredible their entire experience has been.</p>
<p>There was just one glaring exception: their online checkout experience.</p>


"The checkout experience is so important - one of the top three most important factors of the site. Bolt made it possible for us to implement a fast and easy checkout that allows our customers to complete their purchase in a matter of seconds."

<h3>How a faulty checkout nearly undermined AKIRA’s customer-centric advantage</h3>
<p>“Our checkout was the worst, absolutely awful,” remembers <a href="https://www.shopakira.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><span style="color: #ffffff;"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">AKIRA</span></strong></span></a>’s director of ecommerce, Sara Kim. “It was so time-consuming, and everyone always complained about it.” Counter to their otherwise speedy and frictionless brand experience, their checkout spanned multiple steps, with seemingly endless fields. Sara had tried to implement a simplified checkout solution several times before finding Bolt, but they failed to integrate each time due to &#8220;backend compatibility issues&#8221;.</p>
<p>“Everyone’s so impatient these days, and frankly, no one wants to sit there for a few minutes and fill that out,” said Sara as she recalled her frustration. “We’re customer-centric, but if they don’t even finish the checkout, we can’t show them that. We were experiencing so much drop-off.”</p>
<p>Worse, their existing fraud software lacked the sophistication to truly protect them or the interests of their customers. As configured, it required extensive resources and staff hours reallocated from the customer service team to do deep dives on their customers. By the time they found Bolt, their customer service team was spending over 30 hours a week that they could have been supporting customers instead managing the backend of their fraud and checkout. Internally, the poor checkout and fraud protection threatened to undermine AKIRA’s otherwise impeccable customer service record, and by extension, their brand.</p>


<h3>The Bolt difference</h3>
<p>Bolt changed all of that. Finally, AKIRA’s customers have a checkout experience that matches the ease and over-performance of the rest of their systems. “The checkout experience is so important &#8212; one of the top three on the whole site &#8212; but without Bolt, it’s hard to create one that’s really high quality and produces the conversion results we wanted,” says Sara.</p>
<p>For AKIRA, the switch to Bolt meant the replacement of a clunky, outdated checkout experience with a modern, streamlined one, complete with reduced form fields, zero redirects, and a simplified user experience. Bolt’s checkout design was a natural pairing for Akira’s core demographic: a young, predominantly millenial and Gen-Z customer base shopping mostly on mobile. As a truly mobile-optimized checkout experience, Bolt provided a preferred alternative to the previous design.</p>
<p>On top of Bolt’s improvements to the AKIRA checkout experience, the Bolt fraud review process and zero fraud guarantee has meant the elimination of tens of hours per week of manual fraud order review by the AKIRA team. Their team’s back to spending their time on actual customers again, too, instead of the endless hours vetting fraud that often still ended with AKIRA getting the chargeback. Says Sara: “Bolt came along, and really took the risk out of the equation. We’re not rejecting good orders any more, we are rejecting the bad ones, and it’s saving us a ton of time.” Overall, Bolt’s many improvements have allowed AKIRA’s core checkout experience to match their inherently customer-centric digital strategy, and the elimination of chargebacks and the need for manual order review allowed them to put the focus back where it belonged: on their customers and growth.</p>


AKIRA

Mike Sullo

Higher order approval rate

<h2>How Restaurant Supply saved tens of hours per week in fraud review and brought innovation and mobile-centric design to an older, competitive category with Bolt</h2>
<p>If you’re looking for an industry to break into, restaurant supplies isn’t an obvious first choice. It’s not just the prohibitively-expensive inventory required; the category is an older one dominated by massive, family-name incumbents that operate almost entirely offline. These stalwarts have entrenched holds on the various regional markets across the U.S. and are bolstered by large chain business contracts, effectively choking out many would-be newcomers.</p>
<p>Enter <a href="https://www.restaurantsupply.com/"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #ffffff;">Restaurant Supply</span></strong></a>. By creating a nimble, digital-first alternative to the traditional restaurant supply model, they recognized that they’d be able to create a solution that removed much of this burden from restaurant owners. The old-fashioned, brick and mortar conglomerate model doesn’t necessarily benefit the primary customer for these businesses. They have foodservice businesses to run, often ones that are new and quickly-growing. They don’t have time to track down their nearest physical supplier for a piece of equipment that will likely impact their bottom line that very night.</p>


"Bolt’s so fast that sometimes customers don’t even remember checking out."

<h3>Nimble ecommerce as a key point of differentiation</h3>
<p>Over the past few years, Restaurant Supply has invested considerable resources into creating an offering that’s as nimble and customer-centric as possible. Their ambition is to become a full-service, quality stop for everything a restaurant owner needs &#8212; from hot dog roller grills, conveyor toasters, and bussing tubs down to the food pans, serving bowls, and spatulas. Last year, Restaurant Supply invested in an expanded, upgraded warehouse that significantly improved both their inventory management and their order fulfilment. From there, checkout was the natural next area of the customer experience to prioritize.</p>
<p>“Our customers are everywhere; they’re often busy, on-the-go, and ordering from the ground to fill an immediate need that could potentially impact their ability to do business that night,” explains Restaurant Supply ecommerce and marketing manager, Mike Sullo. Restaurant Supply also saw an opportunity to optimize their checkout for a new wave of mobile-centric users: “We recognized that checkout was a huge part of ensuring we answer that need. It’s the most important thing on a website, whether it’s on a mobile phone or tablet, so you can’t make it difficult on your customers. It really makes a huge difference.”</p>


<h3>The Bolt Difference</h3>
<p>For Restaurant Supply, the move to Bolt meant the introduction of a truly mobile-optimized checkout, with reduced form fields, zero redirects, and a streamlined and simplified overall user experience. Since making the switch, Restaurant Supply has seen a 16% conversion lift on the site&#8217;s digital checkout. Now, Mike jokes: “Bolt’s so fast that sometimes customers don’t even remember checking out.” While the checkout conversion lift would be significant on its own, the effect was enhanced with a 7.4% increase in order approval rates, compounding the dramatic revenue growth Bolt has achieved for Restaurant Supply in the last year.</p>
<p>On top of the improvements to checkout and order approval rates, Bolt has been able to free Restaurant Supply from a once-difficult fraud problem. Before Bolt, Sullo and his team found themselves leveled by chargebacks from a rapidly-growing user base. Without an internal solution, the Restaurant Supply took to manually reviewing orders, with the problem of “false positives”, or wrongly rejected good customers, compounding their fraud loss rate. Bolt’s zero fraud guarantee has saved Restaurant Supply tens of hours per week in manual order review time, and tens of thousands of dollars in annual chargeback costs.</p>
<p>Overall, Bolt has become indispensable for improving conversions and mobile customer experience while also providing peace of mind against fraud. Now, Mike says, “I’m not even sure if I can claim that there’s something else out there that competes with Bolt. There’s nothing else that provides the complete, all-in-one solution that Bolt does.”</p>


Restaurant Supply

Sean Valencourt

Lift in checkout conversion rate

<h2>How Bolt drove double-digit conversion rate increases while eliminating fraud for luxury sustainable outdoor furniture brand POLYWOOD</h2>
<p>In the late 1980&#8217;s, government-mandated recycling programs were in full swing. As the use of plastic in the U.S. grew, the need to transform the overabundance of recycled plastic into something new was greater than ever. Two high school friends in Syracuse, Indiana saw an opportunity in high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic — an extremely durable and weather resistant material, the perfect application for outdoor furniture. In 1990, they founded <a href="https://www.polywood.com/"><span style="color: #ffffff;"><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">POLYWOOD</span></strong></span></a>, the first company to create beautiful, high-quality, and long-lasting outdoor furniture from recycled plastics, establishing the “faux wood” outdoor furniture category — currently, the fastest growing category in the industry.</p>
<p>In 2017, POLYWOOD became one of the first manufacturers in their industry to sell products directly to consumers. “Continual innovation is a driving force in all we do,” says POLYWOOD Ecommerce Manager, Jason Detamore. The company’s pioneering manufacturing techniques and operations have earned POLYWOOD a place as the premier wood alternative furniture brand.</p>
<p>But, increased ecommerce sales also brought growing pains.</p>


"Bolt’s allowed our customer service team to focus on what really matters: taking exceptional care of our customers.”

<h3>Revenue drain due to checkout issues and fraud losses</h3>
<p>Everything at POLYWOOD reflects their dedication to genuine quality: their story, their products, their process. The one place the brand’s quality reputation wasn’t reflected was in its most important consumer touchpoint: checkout.</p>
<p>“Our previous checkout experience was slow, buggy, and difficult to navigate on mobile devices,” explains Sean Valencourt, EVP Information Systems at POLYWOOD. “We also had significant issues finding a stable Adobe Commerce payment extension for our previous payments provider.”</p>
<p>Slow loading times meant a poor customer experience, lost sales, and potential loss of long-term customers. Moreover, checkout bugs and downtime meant that marketing dollars spent bringing customers to the website went to waste.</p>
<p>Checkout wasn&#8217;t the only source of revenue loss. In the early days, POLYWOOD implemented a proactive, manual order review process to ensure fraud prevention best practices. As order volume grew, spending time reviewing orders began to strain internal resources. Members of the customer service team spent much of their time reviewing orders rather than providing the quality experience that POLYWOOD is known for. Instead, POLYWOOD wanted the freedom to focus on their business. They wanted to improve their site’s performance without having to design a better checkout experience from scratch, and to eliminate the operational strain of fraud review, without sacrificing on order approval rates.</p>


<h3>The Bolt Difference</h3>
<p>Bolt proved to be the solution to the problems POLYWOOD faced. Bolt brought seamless checkout to POLYWOOD’s site, across all devices, and the difference was immediate: after just 60 days with Bolt, customer checkout rates were 10% higher than before, leading to a significant 5.4% lift in monthly revenue. Bolt completely eliminated fraudulent chargebacks for POLYWOOD and nudged up their order approval rate, resulting in six-figure cost savings. Bolt also released the burden on the customer service team; says Valencourt, “Bolt has allowed our customer service team to focus on what really matters: taking exceptional care of our customers.”</p>
<p>The Bolt difference has held. Over time Bolt has demonstrated a remarkable 10% overall conversion lift for POLYWOOD. It’s this and the partnership forged by Bolt’s internal team, which fully alleviated the backend work and allowed the customer service team to get back to the important work of taking care of their customers, that prompted the POLYWOOD team to expand their Bolt partnership to their sister business, <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #ffffff;"><a href="https://www.trexfurniture.com/" style="color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;">Trex Outdoor Furniture</a></span></strong>, in January 2019.</p>
<p>With Bolt, POLYWOOD has leading order approval rates and complete fraud protection. Those results are complemented by high-touch support from the Bolt team. “Bolt has been highly responsive and great to work with,” says Detamore.</p>
<p>POLYWOOD is all about investing in what’s best for the long term, whether that’s by creating quality products meant to be enjoyed season after season for their customers, or by processing more than 400,000 plastic milk jugs a day to create a product that’s environmentally sustainable. For POLYWOOD, the switch to Bolt has allowed them to re-focus their attention where it matters most: on their innovative mission.</p>


Polywood Outdoor

Keith Bridges

<h2>How Bolt increased Safford Equipment’s order approval rate by 53% and fast-tracked their growth from local business to national category leader</h2>
<p>Ecommerce was Keith Bridges’ opportunity to bring <a href="https://saffordequipment.com/"><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #ffffff;"><strong>Safford Equipment</strong></span></a> &#8212; and his eponymous Alabama town &#8212; to the national stage. He founded the company 18 years ago, when the tiny town had not so much as a stoplight, post office, or another business for Keith to model his after. Even though he had no experience with ecommerce and very few others in his category sell their products online, Keith is a born entrepreneur and knows an opportunity when he sees it: “With Amazon and all the other big guys out there, everyone expects to order and get things delivered to their home. That means even things that haven’t been traditionally shipped and bought online, like lawnmowers, need to be.” Keith recognized a particular opportunity selling and shipping large lawnmowers through a digital storefront, since almost no one else offered them online.</p>


“My checkout system is head-over-heels better than my competitors.”<br />


See how Bolt is perfecting checkout for online retailers

50

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99.1%

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97%

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80%

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$0

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97.2%

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98.5%

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54%

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10%

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53%

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44x

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60%

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