Luxury watches are lavish gifts that are special purchases for oneself or their loved ones. This is why many luxury watch vendors find success and thrive when offering customers a variety of high end watches for their collection or to gift. Conducting online sales allows merchants to reach a wider consumer base, so it only makes sense for many watch sellers to take their business online. This offers convenience for customers and themselves. Be careful! There are a number of risks that come with selling luxury watches online, the biggest one being chargebacks.
Are you a luxury watch seller finding yourself dealing with numerous chargebacks? Do traditional banks and payment processors reject your applications when it comes to their services due to chargeback risk? How can you go about preventing transaction disputes? This article will teach you more about chargebacks, preventing them, and what you can do to keep your watch business unaffected and successful, including working with USA Payments for chargeback and fraud prevention!
Why is My Luxury Watch Business Constantly Dealing With Chargebacks?
Selling high priced watches can be a lucrative business. In fact, revenue in luxury watches has been estimated to run around $14 billion in the United States. While many people are constantly buying new and secondhand luxury watches, this puts watch merchants at a higher chance of going through chargebacks. No business wants to deal with these! Chargebacks occur when a customer disputes a transaction on their debit or credit card, and the retailer is forced to return the transaction amount at a loss.
The jewelry industry, including watches, is often one of the most impacted industries when it comes to chargebacks. Why is your watch retailer dealing with constant chargebacks? There can be a number of reasons. Some of the most common grounds for a chargeback include:
Fraud
Fraud is one of the leading causes of chargebacks. The term “friendly fraud” can describe the customer who purchased the initial watch filing a chargeback on the grounds of never receiving the item or service they in fact did receive. Friendly fraud may be fueled by buyer’s remorse, or perhaps a dissatisfaction with the price of the product. Of course, there can be true instances of fraud where a customer’s sensitive payment information has fallen into the wrong hands, which is when a chargeback may also be filed.
Technical Errors
Another reason a chargeback may be filed is due to technical errors. This may look like a mistake in the manual processing of a credit or debit card. However, a technical error can also look like duplicate charges due to system errors or a customer hitting “buy now” multiple times. Duplicate charges is another significant reason for chargebacks.
Delayed Shipment/Delivery
Delays can happen. If a customer’s watch order is delayed in shipment or delivery, they may choose to file a chargeback. Buyers often take this step if their item was not delivered within a reasonable time frame. Especially if expedited shipping was paid.
Are Chargebacks Unfavorable For My Company?
Absolutely! No merchant wants to deal with chargebacks. With chargebacks, vendors have to provide refunds back to customers, which means refunding the purchase price, as well as any chargeback fees that may come their way. Also, many traditional payment processors see a high frequency of chargebacks as high risk, which can lead to termination of the merchant account of a business. This results in larger hurdles when it comes to being able to process credit/debit card payments, ecommerce payments, and other essential business payment softwares.
How Can I Prevent Chargebacks?
As a luxury watch business, there are many avenues one can take to prevent chargebacks. Numerous chargebacks can affect your revenue and business reputation. So how can a watch retailer actively work to prevent chargebacks? Taking the following steps can help.
Center on Secure Online Payments
There is nothing more important than guaranteeing secure online payments. Not only will this build customer trust, but it can also protect you as a business. How can you make the online payment process more protected for your buyer? This can include:
- Updating your point-of-sale (POS) software
- Using PCI-encryption to further protect card and bank account details
- Using two-factor authentication during the payment process
- Investing in payment gateways and checkout terminals that make card payments more secure
Outline Clear Return and Refund Policies
In order to prevent chargebacks, another key detail may be outlining clear return and refund policies. This will instill an easy and accommodating refund policy for customers. As a merchant, you may wonder, isn’t an easy refund policy counterproductive? Not at all! This is because in the vast landscape of payment processing for luxury watch dealers, refunds fare much better than chargebacks, and they also will not incur chargeback fees.
Have a Consistent Customer Service Team
Having a customer service team ready to assist customers is always crucial. By having a team of expert customer service agents, customer dissatisfaction and concerns may be handled quicker. This can be particularly essential when it comes to high-ticket transactions. Not to mention, there may be a potential to avoid chargebacks and other profit-loss through customer service interactions with customers. This way, you are protecting your retailer, and still keeping the best interest of customers!
Work with a High-Risk Payment Processor
Luxury watches are a small branch of the jewelry industry. Unfortunately, as mentioned before, this industry is seen as high risk by many banks and traditional payment processors. This makes it difficult for vendors to obtain the payment softwares they need. This can also be especially aggravating when it comes to dealing with chargebacks. Many luxury watch vendors who manage to secure merchant accounts with traditional payment processors may suddenly see their accounts frozen or terminated, which can be a huge loss! This is where a high risk payment processor comes in, who has the experience of working with these types of merchants.
What is a High-Risk Payment Processor?
A high risk payment processor has the experience of working with high risk merchants. These merchants have been deemed too high of a risk by banks and other payment processors, which can make it hard for credit and debit card processing online and in physical retailers. Fortunately, a high risk payment processor specializes in these industries, and provides merchants with much-needed payment processing solutions tailored to their business! USA Payments is a trusted high risk payment processor.
How Can USA Payments Help With Chargebacks?
At USA Payments, we are aware that luxury watch retailers and other jewelry merchants run a higher risk of chargebacks with online sales. This is why we provide some of the most cutting-edge payment technology on the market. High risk retailers who work with our team can reap the benefits of:
- Point-of-sale solutions and all major credit/debit card processing
- Virtual terminal solutions that are PCI compliant and secure
- Secure PCI-encrypted card readers
- E-commerce solutions that securely protect customer information
Let the worries of online transactions fade when working with USA Payments! We know online transactions are convenient, but also open up both businesses and customers to some issues. Fortunately, our team of experts can provide retailers with the secure payment processing they need. Whether you’re online, in-person, or on the go, let us help!
Contact USA Payments Today!
Protect your business and customers while securing the freedom of payment processing. Contact USA Payments today to get started on your merchant account. Connecting with our specialists will give you more customized solutions for your business. Skip the hassle (and chargebacks), connect with us today!