Brew Watch Company Case Study
Unlocking Over 3% Revenue Lift to Power Scalable Growth
Overview
The Company
Brew Watch Company is an independent, design-driven watch brand founded by Jonathan Ferrer. For more than a decade, Brew has cultivated a dedicated global community by producing thoughtfully crafted timepieces inspired by industrial espresso machines, café culture, and modern minimalism.
As a direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand, Brew designs, manufactures, and ships its watches individually to customers around the world. Brew focuses on product quality and customer experience — two pillars at the heart of the brand. However, rapid growth and global reach also introduced new operational and fraud-related challenges that threatened both profitability and customer experience.
See Our Accurate Real-Time Fraud Screening for ecommerce in Action
See Our Accurate Real-Time Fraud Screening for ecommerce in Action
Challenges
Before Wyllo
As Brew approached its 11th year in business, the company experienced a significant spike in sales — a trend that Jonathan was excited to see: “We’ve noticed a huge spike in sales, which is fantastic. So you’re a net positive.” But with that growth came a steep increase in fraudulent activity.
1. Rising Fraud and More Sophisticated Attackers
Jonathan shares that while Brew had always dealt with some level of fraud, the post-COVID era brought a wave of far more sophisticated attempts. “With that, the increase of fraudulent orders has also increased. And not just the increase in fraudulent orders, but how clever these alleged customers have become.”
These evolving fraud patterns created challenges including:
- Undermining profitability through high-risk orders and attempted theft
- Potential reseller fraud due to the popularity and resale value of Brew’s limited releases
- Chargeback exposure, especially from international orders
- Operational inefficiency driven by an exhausting manual review process
Pressure on customer experience, since, as Jonathan notes, “You can’t just simply reach out to a customer and accuse them of being fraudulent and you can’t simply just cancel an order without communicating.”
2. Manual Review Became Unsustainable
Before adopting a fraud solution, Brew managed fraud detection entirely in-house. Jonathan describes it as a constant “chess game” with increasingly clever fraudsters:
Not only did this consume hours of the team’s time each week — it also risked harming the seamless customer experience Brew is known for. The company needed a way to stop fraud without slowing down legitimate customers or adding friction to the buying journey.
An Automated Solution
The Turning Point
When a fellow brand owner recommended Wyllo, Jonathan decided to finally explore an automated fraud solution. What mattered most was finding a partner with:
- Deep experience
- Advanced data sets
- A strong intelligence engine
- Personalized support for long-term scalability
As he recalls, “The best solution that I needed was a company that had experience in this realm, but more than experience, had data sets, had the intel and the backend to support me and the future of my company.” Brew Watches implemented Wyllo’s Fraud Protection solution to automatically review orders, block fraudulent activity, and approve legitimate customers in real time.
Proactive Fraud Detection
One of the most impactful benefits for Brew was Wyllo’s ability to flag suspicious activity before it created downstream issues. “We’re able to see things flagged before they become an issue, before there’s chargebacks, before we ship anything that lands on an empty doorstep for the culprit to possibly grab,” Jonathan highlights.
Blocking Fraudulent Orders While Passing More Good Customers
With automated decisioning in place, Brew was finally able to eliminate the back-and-forth manual investigations that consumed hours of operational bandwidth each week. Fraud attempts were stopped instantly — and legitimate buyers enjoyed a frictionless checkout.
Key advantages included:
- Preserving Brew’s high-touch customer experience
- Blocking fraudulent orders with high accuracy
- Passing more legitimate orders without burdening the customer
- Removing manual review completely
Human-Backed Support, Not “Set it and Forget it”
Jonathan stresses that one of his early apprehensions was using a fraud tool that felt too automated or generic. What won him over was Wyllo’s combination of advanced technology and human expertise. “It’s not just another AI implemented tool that’s ‘set it and forget it.’ There’s real people behind this to help step you through these different support stages. They understand you, your business, and the end goal.”
This personalized support gave Brew the confidence to grow without fearing fraud spikes or operational bottlenecks.
Results
Results That Scale
With Wyllo, Brew Watches transformed a growing fraud challenge into a strategic advantage. The brand now enjoys:
- Higher revenue
- Fewer chargebacks
- A fully automated fraud workflow
- More time to focus on product innovation and customer delight
Most importantly, Brew preserved the seamless, human-centered customer experience that has defined the brand since day one.
3.1% Revenue Lift Through Smarter Approvals
With Wyllo passing more legitimate orders that were previously at risk of being declined or manually canceled, Brew was able to approve more orders from loyal customers. Wyllo’s precise decisioning ensures that real customers experience smooth, uninterrupted checkouts, even during peak sales seasons.
77% Reduction in Chargebacks
Brew now has proactive fraud blocking that prevents high-risk orders from ever becoming chargebacks. With Wyllo proactively detecting and blocking fraudulent transactions, chargebacks have dropped by 77%, creating immediate savings and long-term operational relief.
100+ Hours Saved per Year
By eliminating manual review and the “chess game” Jonathan described, Brew recovers over 100 hours of operational time annually. That time is now reinvested into:
- Designing new watch collections
- Improving customer experience
- Growing sales and brand reach
