The world’s largest online luxury watch market place (and also auction platform), eBay, has recently announced a major upgrade in how buyers of luxury watches can feel safe about their purchases. In short, all wristwatches purchased at a price of $2,000 and up, will be verified by a third-party authenticator prior to delivery to the buyer. eBay calls this new feature its Authenticity Guarantee  service — and it adds a powerful weapon in eBay’s efforts to appeal to those buying and selling watches online.

Ask any buyer of a luxury watch online what their biggest fear is, and most often than not, they will say, “I am afraid that what I purchased will not match the item’s description.” Wristwatch consumers are often asked to take an appreciable risk when it comes to trusting a seller’s first-person description of a product they hope finds a buyer. Much of the time, consumers receive exactly what was being offered, but too often, consumers are left feeling frustrated that a timepiece they purchased is in a different condition than it was promised, or worse yet, a fake.

eBay has more experience with the online purchase and sale of wristwatches (at all price points) than any other retail platform. Each day, numerous transactions for obscure to ultra-popular timepieces occur on the eBay platform with buyers across the world. eBay already has a number of built-in safety and convenience tools, making the purchase (or sale) of a luxury wristwatch easy and straightforward. Now, eBay users can look for the “Authenticity Guarantee” badge on applicable watches to select those that will be post-sale-authenticated prior to reaching them. eBay developed the program with decades-of-experience third-party professional watch service center that perform the physical inspections.

eBay’s Authenticity Guarantee doesn’t cost anything and only adds a modest amount of waiting time to when a buyer expects to receive their eBay watch purchase. Upon a completed sale, the watch seller is instructed to ship the purchased watch to the third-party authenticator. Within two days, each timepiece is inspected and then sent using two-day shipping to the buyer in the United States. Eligible transactions are for non-smart mechanical or quartz wristwatches whose final bidding price is $2,000 or more. More so, Authenticity Guaranteed-eligible watches cannot be after-market modified or customized. For complete terms and conditions, please visit eBay.com.

The eBay Authenticity Guarantee service is available only for buyers in the United States (for now) transacting on eBay.com (as opposed to local-country versions of eBay). After purchasing an Authenticity Guarantee-eligible wrist watch, buyers can track the status of the third-party authentication service from directly within “My eBay.”

With wrist watch sales continuing to explode online versus offline, eBay’s introduction of the Authenticity Guarantee service proves to be a compelling reason for a large number of consumers to trust eBay with their wrist watch purchases – especially when purchasing pre-owned or vintage timepieces. For no added cost, eBay delivers a strong assurance to buyers that they can trust buying watches on eBay, each and every time. Learn more about Authenticity Guaranteed watches on eBay here.

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