ULYSSE NARDIN BECOMES THE FIRST WATCHMAKER TO OFFER A SECURED WARRANTY CERTIFICATE ANCHORED IN THE BLOCKCHAIN

Newsgate360 – Ulysse Nardin, accompanied by Kering’s Innovation team, shows its desire to be among the pioneers of major technological changes which enhance the customer experience. In fact, since November 4, 2019, for each purchase of a new Ulysse Nardin watch from the official reseller network, a free and tamper-proof extended warranty certificate, anchored in the most widely used and robust public blockchain, will be generated and digitally signed by Ulysse Nardin, then emailed to the customer or sent to their Ulysse Nardin user account. The fine watchmaker thereby wishes to provide secured proof of the authenticity of its products.

EACH WATCH HAS ITS OWN DIGITAL FINGERPRINT

Therefore, a digital document like a warranty certificate in this case, when protected on the blockchain, becomes tamper-proof. The registers of “hashes” are publicly accessible, anywhere in the world, at anytime, thereby removing the risk of losing, forgetting or falsification of physical warranty cards, traditionally provided with the watch at the time of purchase. Another advantage is that this certificate becomes extremely useful for the after-sales service (a reliable transaction history) or when it is offered as a gift or resold (used market). The physical guarantee card will continue to exist, since thanks to its “bubble tag”, customers will be able to extend the watch warranty to 5 years and thus directly generate their online blockchain warranty certificate.

So, essentially, when a customer buys a Ulysse Nardin watch, they must enter it on the Ulysse Nardin website using the physical “prooftag” warranty card. They will then receive a personalized digital certificate on their name in a PDF format containing all the data and information about the purchased product (model, watch serial number, warranty card number and warranty end date). The signature of this warranty document is anchored in the blockchain via its “hash”, i.e. the document’s digital fingerprint.

THE BITCOIN BLOCKCHAIN, THE BEST SAFE

Thanks to the advanced cryptographic methods and the strong decentralization of the Bitcoin network (the first blockchain created more than 10 years ago with a high-level of reliability of its data), putting in place this certificate is an extremely innovative project in the sense that it does not use a third-party company to ensure the validity of the certification.

“We decided to use the most secure and most recognized solution. 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.”, Stéphane Carlier, Chief Digital Officer of Ulysse Nardin, in charge of the project stated.

Verifying the validity of Ulysse Nardin warranty certificates will be possible directly on the Bitcoin blockchain using an explorer like https://blockstream.info/, or a checker using the same open source standard as https://btcproof.info/. Another option for the customer is a checker widget hosted directly on the Ulysse Nardin’s website: https://www.ulysse-nardin.com/verify-certificate. For its development, Ulysse Nardin and Kering chose the Breton start-up “Woleet”. By a simple “drag and drop”, the link between the warranty certificate and the blockchain is simplified.

“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. 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”, Amélie Lemoine, Kering’s Director of Innovation said.