How does payment work, and what is the deposit?

Watches are paid for in full at checkout. Workshop seats work differently: you reserve a seat with a 25% deposit, and the balance falls due 30 days before your session.

Buying a watch

A watch is paid for in a single payment when you check out on hampdenwatch.com, and an email receipt follows once the order is confirmed. That holds whether or not the watch is being engraved, so a personalized order is paid for before any design work begins. The steps from cart to confirmation are set out in how do I place an order.

Reserving a workshop seat

A seat at a First Hand workshop is held with a 25% deposit taken when you book. The remaining balance is due 30 days before the date of your session.

Seats are non-refundable, but they're fully transferable at any time and at no charge, and if you're fourteen or more days out you get one free reschedule to any open session. What happens to your payment inside fourteen days, and how transfers are handled, is covered in what is the workshop deposit and reschedule policy.

Checking that a payment went through

Every payment generates an email receipt, so your inbox is the quickest place to look, spam folder included. If you can't find one, or you're not certain the remaining balance on a seat was taken, write to hello@hampdenwatch.com with your order number and either the date of your session or the name of the watch. We'll confirm within one to two business days.

It's worth checking rather than assuming, particularly if your session is close. A balance that hasn't cleared is easy to sort out with a few days' notice and harder in the last week.

Codes and credit

A promotional code is entered at checkout, in the code field, before you pay. Hampden credit is applied the same way.

Codes are not applied retroactively. A code can't be added to an order you've already placed or to a deposit you've already paid, so it has to go in at checkout to count. If one reaches you just after you've ordered, hold on to it for a future order rather than writing in to have it applied to the current one.

If checkout won't complete

Write to us rather than trying again. If a shipping option won't unselect, a code won't apply, or the payment won't go through at all, another attempt rarely clears it and can leave more than one pending charge on your card.

Send hello@hampdenwatch.com the watch or session you're trying to buy, what you're seeing on screen, and the email address you're checking out with. We can look at the order from our side and either fix it or take the payment another way. How do I reach a person covers what else to include and when to expect a reply.

Updated on: 21/08/2026