EBay, which features a large luxury watch marketplace among its online offerings, has announced an escrow service to facilitate the buying and selling of watches worth $10,000 or more. The service has been added via a trusted third party, Escrow.com, which will hold funds securely until the transaction is complete. The process requires minimal steps, and there are no processing fees. The escrow service comes on the heels of the Authenticity Guarantee that eBay added last year, which has guaranteed the provenance of more than 7,000 luxury watches sold for $10,000 or more since it launched.
“We are changing the way people buy and sell luxury items on eBay,” said Tirath Kamdar, eBay’s general manager of Luxury, in a statement. “When it comes to high value watches and other significant purchases, consumers expect additional assurances. EBay is committed to providing the best experience, from start to finish, and our new offerings will continue to deliver on that promise.”
EBay added the escrow service in response to a surge in demand for luxury watches last year, with more than 1.2 million daily live listings on average resulting in 200,000 luxury watches sold. The company saw more than 22 million site searches for Cartier and more than 15 million for Tag Heuer in the past year, according to Charis Márquez, eBay’s vice president of fashion. Rolex sales also increased, up 4% percent compared with 2019. Patek Philippe, Richard Mille, Audemars Piguet, and Hublot round out the brands that have been popular with eBay shoppers in the past year.
“As a longtime leader in the luxury watch space…eBay offers an unmatched selection of timepieces, from rare, vintage watches to new styles from coveted brands,” Márquez said. “Escrow joins Authenticity Guarantee as eBay’s response to that growing appetite.”
Escrow.com is based in San Francisco and has processed $5 billion worth of transactions since it was founded in 1999.
Top: A Rolex Cosmograph Daytona Diamond 18k gold watch, currently listed for $193,399 on eBay (photo courtesy of eBay)
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