Guest: Gary Novello Jr.
Today I’m talking with Gary Novello Jr. about omnichannel loss prevention, and this is one of those conversations that really matters for retail fraud teams trying to connect what happens in stores with what happens online. Gary has worked across in-person fraud prevention and online fraud prevention, which gives him a perspective a lot of teams need more of right now.
Because the losses may show up in different ways, but the business still feels all of them.
What I like about this conversation is that we do not treat retail loss prevention and ecommerce fraud like totally separate worlds. They are different, yes. The velocity is different. The visibility is different. The operational pressure is different. But the need for strong fraud operations strategy, collaboration, and root cause analysis is very much the same.
And that matters.
Because when companies split online and offline fraud too cleanly, they often miss the bigger patterns. They miss how internal communication affects outcomes. They miss how vendor relationships affect execution. And they miss how important it is to set fraud prevention goals on the right timeline instead of expecting instant results from problems that took a long time to build.
Here is what that means in practice:
- Omnichannel loss prevention requires retail teams to look across both store and digital fraud patterns
- In-person fraud prevention and online fraud prevention have different pressures, but similar root causes
- Fraud root cause analysis is often more valuable than reacting only to surface-level losses
- Retail fraud collaboration gets much stronger when teams align internally and externally
What you’ll hear in this episode:
- How Gary compares in-person fraud prevention with online fraud prevention
- Why loss velocity in fraud looks different across stores and digital channels
- How fraud analytics and fraud root cause analysis help teams solve the right problems
- Why internal fraud communication and cross-functional influence matter so much
- What vendor management in fraud should look like if you want real partnership
You should listen to this episode if you:
- Work in retail fraud, ecommerce risk, or loss prevention and need a more connected view
- Are responsible for omnichannel loss prevention or trying to align online and offline fraud teams
- Want better fraud analytics and stronger fraud root cause analysis
- Need practical advice on merchant vendor relationships and fraud operations strategy
- Are trying to set better fraud prevention goals and more realistic fraud strategy timelines
If you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe and review the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really helps with getting the word out.
Episode notes & key takeaways
In this episode, I talk with Gary about what changes when you have worked on both sides of retail fraud, in stores and online. And honestly, that perspective is really valuable, because too many teams still treat those as separate conversations when they should be learning from both.
Why omnichannel loss prevention needs a more connected view
Let’s break this down.
One of the biggest mistakes retail companies can make is treating store fraud and online fraud like they live in totally different universes. Yes, the attack methods can look different. Yes, the operational teams are often different. But the company is still absorbing the loss either way, and the same bad assumptions can show up in both places.
That is where omnichannel loss prevention becomes so important.
It forces teams to stop thinking only in silos and start asking bigger questions. Where is the business most exposed? How fast do losses happen in each channel? What patterns are being missed because teams are not sharing enough information? And which controls actually help across the full customer journey?
That is the part that makes this conversation useful.
- Omnichannel loss prevention helps connect fraud signals across stores and digital channels
- Online and offline fraud often expose similar weaknesses in process, visibility, and communication
- Retail loss prevention gets stronger when teams look at the full business impact of fraud
- Fraud operations strategy should reflect how losses move across the whole organization
How in-person and online fraud create different kinds of loss
Here’s what’s actually happening.
Gary and I talk about the differences between in-person fraud prevention and online fraud prevention, and one of the biggest distinctions is loss velocity. Online fraud can move incredibly fast. Orders can be placed quickly, accounts can be abused at scale, and losses can stack up before teams have much time to respond. In-store fraud often plays out differently, with different controls, different friction points, and different visibility.
But different does not mean easier.
It just means the risk shows up in a different shape. And if fraud teams do not understand how those shapes differ, they can end up applying the wrong expectations to the wrong channel. That usually leads to frustration, bad reporting, and goals that do not match reality.
- Loss velocity in fraud is often much higher in digital channels than in-store environments
- In-person fraud prevention relies on different controls, but still needs strong operational discipline
- Online fraud prevention often requires faster feedback loops and quicker cross-team action
- Fraud prevention goals should reflect the reality of each channel instead of forcing one model onto both
Why fraud root cause analysis matters more than quick fixes
This is where things get interesting.
A lot of companies still spend too much time reacting to symptoms and not enough time doing fraud root cause analysis. They focus on the immediate loss, the chargeback spike, the store incident, the account abuse event. All of that matters, obviously. But if you stop there, you are probably not solving much.
Gary talks about using analytics and data to get underneath the problem, and that is exactly the right approach.
Because fraud analytics should not just help you count losses. They should help you understand why the losses happened, what process failed, where the breakdown started, and what pattern is likely to repeat if nothing changes. That is where the real value is.
- Fraud root cause analysis helps teams solve the problem behind the loss, not just the loss itself
- Fraud analytics should support diagnosis, not just reporting
- Retail fraud collaboration improves when teams align around causes instead of blame
- Better analysis often leads to more durable fixes and stronger fraud prevention goals
Why internal communication and vendor relationships matter so much
Honestly, this is one of my favorite parts of the conversation.
Fraud teams can have strong instincts, useful data, and the right priorities, but if internal fraud communication is weak, a lot of that value gets lost. The same thing goes for vendor management in fraud. If the relationship is shallow, reactive, or transactional, then teams usually do not get the full value they need when problems get complicated.
And fraud problems do get complicated.
That is why Gary’s perspective on influence, internal communication, and merchant vendor relationships is so useful. You cannot fight fraud halfway. You need people inside the business who understand what matters, and you need external partners who are actually invested in helping solve the problem with you.
- Internal fraud communication shapes how quickly teams can respond and align
- Vendor management in fraud works best when the relationship is a true partnership
- Merchant vendor relationships matter most when fraud challenges become more complex
- Retail fraud collaboration is stronger when both internal teams and vendors are aligned
Why timelines matter in fraud strategy
This is one of those topics that sounds simple, but it really is not.
Fraud strategy timelines matter because companies often expect immediate results from changes that need time to work. A new process gets rolled out. A new tool gets implemented. A new workflow gets introduced. Then leadership wants to know if everything is fixed by next week. That usually is not how this works.
Right.
Some fraud improvements happen quickly. Others take time to show up in the numbers. Some changes improve visibility before they improve performance. Some require retraining, recalibration, and iteration. And if teams are measured on the wrong timeline, they may end up making decisions that look good short term but create bigger problems later.
- Fraud strategy timelines should reflect how long meaningful change actually takes
- Fraud prevention goals need to be realistic, measurable, and tied to operational reality
- Macy’s fraud strategy lessons here apply to many retail teams trying to scale responsibly
- Better timing expectations often lead to better long-term fraud outcomes
The big takeaway from this episode is pretty straightforward. Omnichannel loss prevention is not just about comparing store fraud to online fraud. It is about understanding how both parts of the business lose money, how teams communicate, how partners contribute, and how real fraud progress actually happens. That is why this conversation with Gary is so useful for retail fraud teams trying to get smarter across the whole organization.
