Doomsday Coming For Wrist Watch Retailers?

Ethically a lot of issues exist. You remove a brand from a store that is selling there and you can easily force a business to shut down and put people out of work and livelihoods. Regardless, business needs dictate actions. So you know what is being done.Terminating relationships with third-party retailers also solved a few other problems. Because there was no more wild card authorized dealers selling unsold stock into the gray market, the gray market would eventually not include their brands, or only include pre-owned models. This way pricing was much better regulated and you could feel more confident that there was price consistency. Also, you could have a very linear marketing approach. Advertise online and the ad could link directly to e-commerce site, and consumer could buy a watch right away. No longer would you need to rely on a consumer to proactively "call for more information."While much of what I am explaining is a quick and dirty simplified look at the history and state of the industry, this is exactly what is happening right now. I am *** it a point not to mention specific brands, but you are going to see more brand boutiques and online sales direct from brand very soon. Brand owned boutiques will take over much of the need that third party stores used address. The brand boutiques still serve an important function. Not only for inventory, but also for people who need to physically see watches and want that in-store sales and service experience. That type of need or customer request isn't outmoded, so it should still be available. Only now, it will be the brands themselves that facilitate it.Change first came internally. Many brands started getting wise to "doing it themselves." You see more and more brands with in-house movements, marketing departments, and a tendency to rely on outside suppliers as little as possible (which is still a lot in many cases). If you do use suppliers, then it is very attractive to visit China, where goods are often 50-70% of the quality, for 20-40% of the price for Swiss or other European parts.Brands also took a very close look at the Internet and what it was doing. Are people buying watches? Are they buying expensive watches? The answer to these and more questions was undeniably "yes." Marketing was cheaper online, and setting up shop was easier as well. You could have a *** website with an e-commerce component and theoretically sell your products to people all over the world (and while watch brand websites still are horrible to navigate and slow, things are slowly changing). The only problem was the traditional retailers. The existing network of stores all over the world each with their own promised territory or expectations. Internet retailers would obviously compete with brick-and-mortars ones - no questions about it.How to resolve the problem? The brand could sell directly to consumers online and make a deal with existing retailers to cut them in. Alternatively the brand could directly sell online and have their own brand owned stores. That way there was no competition and you could have inventory placed all over the world. More important, you wouldn't have to split profits with retailers. The new model looks like it had no place for third-party authorized dealers.