Unlocking $1.45M in Hidden Profit & Exposing a $500k Fraud Loophole
Chicwish, a fashion retailer renowned for its vintage-inspired women’s clothing, faced a common challenge in online retail, high return rates due to sizing issues. Like many e-commerce brands, Chicwish struggled with size-related returns, bracketing (ordering multiple sizes), and stagnation in customer retention.
While the initial goal was simply to help customers find the right fit, a 20-month forensic analysis (April 2024 – Nov 2025) revealed that the Prime AI Clothing Size Finder was doing much more. It wasn’t just a sizing tool; it was a profit engine that unlocked $1.45 Million in incremental value and exposed a massive hidden risk in the guest checkout process.
To tackle these challenges, ChicWish partnered with Prime AI to implement its advanced Clothing Size Finder transforming a standard sizing tool into a strategic profit engine. Over a 20-month period, this solution unlocked $1.45 Million in incremental value and exposed $526k in hidden fraud risk. Beyond simply reducing returns, the AI successfully minimised bracketing and increased guest order values, proving that precise fit recommendations drive both customer confidence and bottom-line growth.
The Challenge Beyond Return Rate
Shopping for vintage-inspired fashion presents unique sizing challenges, particularly for dresses, skirts, and knitwear. Before implementing Prime AI, Chicwish faced several key issues:
- High Return Rates due to inconsistent sizing led to confusion and returns across key categories.
- Significant bracketing behaviour, with customers ordering multiple sizes due to uncertainty and returning those that didn’t fit.
- Sizing inconsistencies across product types, leading to confusion and abandoned purchases.
- Missed revenue opportunities due to stockouts, as high-demand products ran out before the brand could adjust production.
- Limited visibility into customer demand by age group makes it difficult to effectively tailor product offerings and marketing campaigns.
Chicwish needed to know if the tool was actually profitable. A deep dive revealed that while strict controls existed for registered users, the Guest Checkout (90% of transactions) was a Wild West of hidden fraud and serial returners.
The Solution: Prime AI’s Custom-Built Intelligence
Chicwish partnered with Prime AI to implement a custom-built Clothing Size Finder. This AI-powered tool provides precise, real-time size recommendations by learning continuously from sales, refunds, and biometric data.
- Eliminated customer guesswork, ensuring shoppers selected the correct size without relying on complex size charts.
- Reduced bracketing behaviour, leading to fewer multiple-size purchases and returns.
- Accounted for variations across product types, providing accurate recommendations across dresses, tops, skirts, outerwear, and knitwear.
- Enhanced customer confidence, increasing purchase commitment and reducing cart abandonment.
- Identified missed sales opportunities due to stockouts at the SKU level, enabling smarter inventory planning.
- Highlighted gaps in size availability, showing instances where customers couldn’t find their correct size, reducing lost sales.
- Provided customer insights by age group, revealing trends in conversion rates and product preferences across demographics.
- Enabled real-time inventory adjustments, allowing ChicWish to predict and react to high-demand products before stockouts occurred.
- Optimised paid marketing campaigns, aligning high-converting products with the right customer segments to improve Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).
- Fraud Detection, analysed transaction patterns to identify Absolute Waste accounts users who buy and return 100% of the value.
This seamless integration transformed ChicWish’s e-commerce strategy, improving fit accuracy, driving revenue growth, and making inventory management more data-driven.
A $1.45M Profitability Gap
The data confirms that the Prime AI Clothing Size Finder successfully delivered on its core promise: it reduced the percentage of revenue lost to returns while significantly boosting the value of every order.
Higher Confidence = Higher Spend
Conventional wisdom suggests that when customers spend more, returns spike. Here, the opposite happened. Prime AI users felt confident enough to buy more expensive items and keep them.
Guest AOV Uplift: Average Order Value for guests rose from $85 to $100 (+18%).
Net Profit Increase: Prime AI users generated +17.8% more profit per order (Guests) and +9.3% (Registered) compared to non-users.
Total Added Value: $1.45 Million in pure incremental profit.
Reduced Returns Across Key Categories - 39% Average
Customers who followed Prime AI size recommendations returned items significantly less often compared to those who did not use the tool:
Womens Dresses
-41%
Womens Tops
-32%
Womens Outerwear
-7%
Womens Skirts
-54%
Womens Knitwear
-61%
Reduction in Bracketing Behaviour
Prime AI Size Finder Pro successfully reduced bracketing behavior (ordering 2+ sizes of the same item) by 20%. This directly lowered logistics/warehousing costs and kept inventory available for other customers.
Less Bracketing
20%
Fraud & Loyalty
The analysis revealed a critical vulnerability. While registered users were monitored, anonymous Guest Checkouts were hiding significant losses.
Visible Fraud: We identified 301 registered Absolute Waste accounts draining $60,000 annually.
Hidden Risk: Extrapolating this behaviour to the Guest segment exposed an estimated $526,000 in potential fraud from serial returners. Prime AI’s behavioural tracking is now helping close this loophole.
Loyalty is the primary bottleneck for fashion retail, with 82% of registered users typically shopping once and never returning. The Size Finder proved to be a powerful retention hook:
Prime AI users shop 19% more frequently than non-users.
Once a customer trusts the size recommendation for their first purchase, they are significantly more likely to shop again, compounding the tool’s value over time.
Prime AI Size Equals E-Commerce Success
Chicwish’s partnership with Prime AI highlights that data isn’t just about reporting what happened, it’s about finding where the money is hiding. By reducing operational waste, exposing fraud, and boosting customer confidence, Prime AI transformed from a simple utility into a million dollar profit driver.
Want to Reduce Returns & Increase Revenue?
Book a Demo Today! Discover how Prime AI size recommendation technology can transform your e-commerce business. With accurate size predictions, reduced bracketing, and increased conversions, your brand can improve profitability while offering a seamless shopping experience. Don’t let sizing uncertainty hold back your sales – start optimising today!
