London (UK) TrueLayer, Europe’s leading open banking platform, today announces its collaboration with Watches of Mayfair, the luxury London-based watch and jewellery boutique, to build a checkout fit for modern ecommerce, by enabling customers to pay via instant account-to-account payments. Through this approach, Watches of Mayfair is delivering a smoother checkout experience for its customers, reducing the burden of heavy card fees and mitigating the risk of fraud and payment failure.
Like many luxury retailers dealing with high order values, high costs associated with payments and the risk of fraud present significant burdens. YouGov research has revealed the cost of card payments to businesses - and in particular chargeback fraud - that have a disproportionate impact on retailers with high order values. 38% of merchants with an average order value greater than £500 report costs of £100-500k a year on chargeback fraud, while 11% reported costs in excess of £500k.
Watches of Mayfair has built a successful brand by focussing on high-quality customer service through its team of experts delivering a memorable, tailor-made buying experience, both in store and online. Part of delivering that luxury service online is a modern, efficient payment method to deliver better experiences for customers, while avoiding cart abandonment and failed transactions.
Powered by TrueLayer’s market-leading open banking platform, Watches of Mayfair now offers a frictionless checkout process, as instant account-to-account payments give customers a way to pay without having to input card details or share sensitive data. Instead, they use their online banking service to make a direct payment, using biometric authentication to confirm their identity, with every transaction authorised by bank-level security.
With TrueLayer, Watches of Mayfair benefits from a more cost-effective payment option where funds settle instantly, providing added assurance that it can ship orders to the customer without the risk of fraud and chargebacks.
Anton Zvarych, founder of Watches of Mayfair said: “Due to the security challenges of trading in high-end goods, we were experiencing a significant number of rejected card transactions by our payment processing providers. That was having a material impact on us so we started looking at options that can make a difference, both for us and for our customers. Discovering open banking payments has been transformational for us, combining enhanced security and greater comfort for our customers at a much lower cost to the business. This is a game changer in how luxury retail businesses approach payments.
“I can’t think of a better payment method than open banking provided by TrueLayer. It is superior in every possible way than the alternatives, being faster, more efficient and far more cost effective. It removes the issue of chargebacks and we can see the funds in our account in a matter of seconds. That means less time chasing failed or stuck payment by customer support teams, and more time on what matters: building our business and ensuring the best experience for our customers.”
Roger De'Ath, Head of UK at TrueLayer, commented: “Retailers like Watches of Mayfair are looking to optimise their checkout and ensure the best possible customer experience. They’ve found this impossible while attempting to manage legacy payment methods like cards that weren’t designed for digital commerce and which don’t suit the needs of retailers today.
“Mounting transaction fees and chargebacks make cards costly while low conversion impacts retailers’ bottom line and affects customer satisfaction. Today’s announcement demonstrates how open banking can make a difference for retailers of all sizes and across categories. By implementing payments with TrueLayer, Anton and the team at Watches of Mayfair are protecting a brand they have spent years building by delivering a superior customer experience. We’re delighted to be working with them and look forward to evolving our relationship over the coming months.”
