Shewee x FERO
How a small e-commerce brand used FERO Smart Checkout to boost conversion by 30% and finally compete on its own terms.
“It effectively increased our sales by 30% and was significantly cheaper than what we were already doing. It almost felt too good to be true.”
Meet Shewee
Shewee is a small e-commerce business selling directly to customers through its own WooCommerce store. Operating independently, the team manages everything in-house, from operations to technology, and competes head-on with marketplace giants like Amazon and eBay for the same customers.
The Challenge
For Shewee, running a profitable direct-to-consumer channel came with real friction. Shipping costs, transaction fees, and the gravitational pull of larger platforms made it difficult to give customers a compelling reason to buy on their own site. Trust was a factor, price competitiveness was a factor, and every percentage point of transaction cost mattered.
As Ned Lambert, Operations Manager at Shewee, explains:
"We're almost competing against ourselves. We know some customers will default to Amazon, but we ideally want to bring them back to our own website. If we can bring transaction costs down, it really helps us pass those savings along to customers."
Without the volume to unlock better rates on platforms like Stripe or PayPal, Shewee was stuck in a high-cost bracket, limiting their ability to reinvest savings into the customer experience.
The Experiment
When FERO first reached out, Ned was skeptical. Shewee receives plenty of cold approaches and rarely acts on them. But this one was different.
"What really impressed me immediately was that it came across as very data-driven, and I have a background in data, so that interested me. It was very much a win-win situation, an offer to try something out at no cost with no risk."
FERO ran an A/B test free trial, splitting traffic to measure the real impact of FERO Smart Checkout against the existing setup. Implementation was rapid, with Shewee's team working directly with FERO to get the integration live on WooCommerce quickly and cleanly.
One complication emerged: Shewee uses an external IOSS VAT service via a plugin that initially conflicted with the checkout. FERO resolved it fast.
"Karel and the team managed to get a fix up and running in an incredibly short amount of time. In a day or two, it was ready."
An adaptive checkout engine that uses predictive AI to automatically adjust, showing the right design, layout, or payment option based on the shopper's behaviour. It integrates easily with ecommerce platforms and can be deployed in under 10 minutes.
The Results
The numbers were clear. Shewee saw a 30% uplift in sales through the checkout, alongside a meaningful reduction in transaction costs compared to their previous setup. From reviewing results on a Friday to being fully live by Wednesday, the entire process from final decision to deployment took less than three working days.
When Ned presented the findings internally, the reaction was disbelief:
"The directors weren't 100% convinced it was real until I showed the actual costs. It almost felt too good to be true."
Why It Worked
FERO Smart Checkout brings enterprise-grade checkout intelligence to independent merchants, the same technology that powers conversion at major retailers, delivered as an out-of-the-box solution. For Shewee, the combination of lower transaction costs, a smoother checkout experience, and the trust signals that come with an optimised flow all contributed to the uplift.
The speed of the VAT plugin fix was also telling. Every business has unique requirements, and FERO's ability to adapt quickly meant there was no drawn-out delay between testing and going live.
More Than Just Performance
For a small, self-managed business like Shewee, the value went beyond the conversion numbers. Having access to the kind of checkout optimization previously reserved for high-volume retailers, at a lower cost than their existing payment stack, changed the economics of running their own store.
"Our sales have increased significantly and our costs were reduced. Having those savings per sale allowed us to pass them on to customers and boost sales even further. I really couldn't recommend it enough."
For any independent e-commerce merchant asking whether enterprise checkout technology is within reach, Shewee's story is a straightforward answer.
