Ulysse Nardin Introduces Blockchain Warranty Certificate For Its Timepieces
Luxury watchmaker Ulysse Nardin debuted its new blockchain certificate, a digital and secure warranty certificate for its timepieces.
Owners of the priced watches no longer have to keep a paper copy of their warranty. They will be able to access their digital warranty on their user account in the Ulysse Nardin website or on the blockchain. The blockchain’s decentralized certification will make it impossible for the warranty to be lost or hacked.
Ulysse Nardin, along with Kering‘s Innovation team, is pioneering the changes within the industry as the first watchmaker to offer a digital warranty certificate through the blockchain to all customers of its collections. The PFD format provided contains all data and information about the watch (model, serial number, warranty card number and warranty end date).
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Ulysse Nardin
Starting on November 4, 2019, Ulysse Nardin provides every customer a free extended warranty certificate, based in the most widely used public blockchain, for every one of its watches purchased from the official reseller network. The customer receives the warranty through email or to their unique Ulysse Nardin user account.
Blockchain is a technology used to keep and transmit information or transactions. Ulysse Nardin stores the “digital signature” off all PDF warranty certificates as a “hash” (i.e. an encrypted string of characters) on the Bitcoin blockchain. The registers of “hashes” are accessible around the world at any time, eliminating the risk of losing or having a falsified copy made of physical warranty cards, which are by tradition given with the watch when initially purchased.
“We decided to use the most secure and most recognized solution,” says Stéphane Carlier, Chief Digital Officer of Ulysse Nardin, who is heading the project. “Also, according to a satisfaction survey that we send to our customers with the certificate, 90% see the value of using the blockchain to protect their certificate and 100% are satisfied with receiving a protected digital certificate.”
Verifying a warranty certificate from Ulysse Nardin can be done on sites such as Blockstream or the Ulysee Nardin website. A “drag and drop” on Woleet simplifies the link between the warranty certificate and the blockchain.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Ulysse Nardin
“We are very happy to have been able to accompany Ulysse Nardin in defining and implementing this innovative process, which for the first time allows a watchmaker to offer its customers warranty certificates for all its collections through the blockchain technology,” says Amélie Lemoine, Kering’s Director of Innovation. “Working with our Houses to ensure they are able to provide their customers the best experience possible is one of our key tasks, and co-creating services as innovative as this one is a particularly significant illustration”.
The blockchain technology is being used by Ulysse Nardin across its ranges.
“We want to provide secured proof to our end customers and thus create trust as regards the authenticity of all our products”, Patrick Pruniaux, CEO of Ulysse Nardin stated. “The second step in this deployment will cover the transfer of ownership of the certificate. Also, why not eventually have a record of all the maintenance operations on our watches in the blockchain?”
This technological advance is a candidate for the Digital Innovation Grand Prix (“Services” category). The award highlights digital innovation by start-ups and large French companies. Ulysse Nardin’s digital warranty certificate was preselected by the Petit Web as one of the 10 finalists in an innovation project out of a total of 373 projects. Results will be announced on February 27, 2020.
For more, visit www.ulysse-nardin.com.
