Opinion: Missguided's head of ecommerce on fraud prevention and future-proofing

Our rapid growth presented a challenge: how could we continue to scale and keep ahead of changing consumer trends while protecting ourselves from online fraud?

To achieve this we partnered with payments technology platform Stripe.

Together we’ve learned a lot. Here are a few of the most important lessons.

Prioritise simplicity on mobile

We launched our mobile shopping app last year and feedback on the simplicity of the checkout flow, including Apple Pay, was incredible.

It’s so important now that you’re not treating any channel as separate as customers expect to have a seamless experience across channels, for example, by being able to easily return items bought online in a store, or vice versa.

Work with innovators

At Missguided, we want to pioneer new trends in the industry, which means that we don’t just follow the rest of the industry.

To achieve this, we have to work with innovators.

Stripe was a natural fit on this front, with its emphasis on software which goes far beyond payments and its fundamentally different approach to commerce online.

Future-proof with technology

Technology is driving rapid change in the way people shop.

At Missguided, every detail of our platform is built around a new generation of tech-savvy shoppers who (rightly) see ten-step checkout processes and third-party re-directs as ancient relics of the early internet.

The Instagram generation wants frictionless commerce, so catering to their needs means optimising our infrastructure not just for Apple Pay today, but also for whatever comes next.

Machine-learning is transforming fraud prevention

Beating fraud is business critical for any online retailer.

Tools like Stripe Radar use machine-learning technology across a network of hundreds of thousands of businesses to prevent fraud with minimum input from our team. Most important, it does this with very few demands put on the customer experience, allowing them to checkout with ease.