Wempe was founded in 1878 in Lower Saxony. The group now operates 22 showrooms across Germany, France, Spain, the UK and USA. A trusted retail partner for some of the world’s best-known jewellery and luxury watch brands, Wempe provides an exceptional e-commerce and in-store retail experience that customers value and trust.
In 2020, with more and more of Wempe’s UK business moving online, this prestigious jewellery and luxury watch retailer was facing a challenge. E-commerce had proven successful for the group across the lower end of its product lines but when it comes to larger purchases, customers often want to ask questions and get expert advice.
Wempe UK was introducing virtual consultations and telephone support to augment its e-commerce offering. This would help to make the online experience more consultative and ensure that customers were getting the same high levels of support that they had come to expect in-store.
One challenge that this presented involved bridging the gap between these real-time consultations and collecting a secure e-commerce payment. Obviously, taking credit card info over the phone or during the video consultation was out of the question. This would raise serious data protection and security issues; potentially leading to costly chargebacks. Payments would need to be taken online and through a 3D secure payment process but it didn’t make sense to send customers back to the website in the hope that they would complete the purchase themselves.
This is where Prommt comes in. The team at Wempe UK identified the payment request platform as a potential solution having seen Prommt in action across other luxury retailers.
The system allows sales advisors to send secure, personalised payment requests via any messaging channel, directly to customers and in real-time during their consultations.
These requests bring customers through a 3D secure online payment process and no sensitive card data is passed between the customer and the store.
Payment requests are also fully-branded coming from a Wempe address, with Wempe branded communications and linking to a personalised payment page on the Wempe website. This reassures customers and gives them the confidence to pay quickly.
Coupled with the competitive pricing and Prommt’s ability to manage multiple users across different locations, this was the obvious choice. The system was rolled out across Wempe UK in December 2020 to great success.
