The guys at that shop are awesome. I went in once with my daughter and at least 6 of her friends (it was a high school marching band trip) and Ric Villa &co. let those that were interested try on a few. I told him straight away I wasn't buying at the time but he didn't care. He just continued being an awesome guy.
Just felt bad for them, as they had almost no stock, and of those 10, like 6 were "sizing" models and not for sale. So odd that Rolex has next to nothing.
Yeah I stopped at my local shop that has a massive watch selection and a huge Rolex area and they had a handful of watches but anything not a ladies watch was 'display only'.
I was the Rolex store in Ginza Tokyo in Dec '19. They had no SS men's watches. Only solid gold in stock on the 2nd floor. It was very empty. Omega had a bunch in stock. Rolex has probably figured its better to make 1 watch and sell for $$$$$ than make 5 watches and sell for $. bastards.
Rolex operates their business and brand management a bit different than most of the other upper mid to high end brands.
It’s not that different than other desirable makes. Try to buy a Patek, ALS or FP Journe for example.
I would agree that they are different than Tag, Omega, Longines, Tissot. How do you see Rolex as different than Patek, AP, Piaget, ALS or FP Journe with regards to their business and brand management? Do you think there's a supply chain issue, or an excess of demand, both? Do you think there's an intentional "shortage"
Rolex and Patek have chosen to not keep up with demand. They could produce to keep up but purposely don’t. Keeps people wanting their products, keeps prices high, sells less desirable watches in their line and in the case of Rolex, sells their Tudor line. FP Journe is just too small of a company to keep up with demand. They are the brand for people that know about them and don’t want the mass market where Rolex and Patek live. AP is just the watch brand of the moment and are smart in not keeping up with current demand because that will end sooner or later and they don’t want to be stuck when the music ends. Think Panerai a few years ago.
They’re but a small fraction of the volume Rolex is able to pull off though. For Rolex to maintain their scarcity and exclusivity, while handling their market share, is an astonishing act of brand management that no one else is pulling off. Not saying the watch manufacturers you mentioned, don’t manage their brands well. Just the challenges of doing that at the scale of Rolex are remarkably different. Not sure these numbers are entirely accurate, but wouldn’t be surprised if the ratio of market dominance between Rolex and the other high/higher tier brands isn’t close to accurate. https://www.statista.com/statistics/940579/market-share-of-swiss-watch-brands-worldwide/
So, Jed, intentionally in most cases. FP just can’t keep up and refuse to expand and risk a drop in quality and desirability. think about “the list” at some Rolex dealers. It used to be SS Daytonas and new, highly desirable models. Now it’s most SS normal models. I’d bet explorer IIs are part of that and the percentage off is now gone.
I have no doubt that what started as incidental has become intentional, especially with the (artificially) increased demand across all lines (Datejust, GMT, Explorer, Sub, Daytona, etc). It is smart to continue to trickle supply and keep the 'buzz' going around "why is Rolex not available" etc.. It keeps demand up. Best thing to sell something to someone is to tell them they can't have it. I would agree with @Montoya on the scale/volume between Rolex and the other Elite brands
I couldn't remember if I posted this one. Got it as a gift from a customer. I work with Helicopter operators and it seems as though everytime we're walking out to one of the Helis somebody always says "Get to da Choppa!" Happens so much that we ended up making company stickers with the Arnold catchphrase. So in the movie Predator where Schwarzenegger says it he's wearing a Seiko dive master. Seiko did a reissue and my friend/customer bought it for me. Kinda cool but not a great watch. The digital display is useless.
Rolex themselves addressed this. It's weird they chose to talk to Yahoo, but whatever. https://news.yahoo.com/why-the-rolex-watch-shortage-is-a-perfect-storm-144250922.html
Who's right handed and wears their watch on right wrist? Is it some unwritten law that right handed folks wear the watch on the left wrist?
Used to but got a bunch of chuckleheads telling me it was wrong. Same type of people that would wear slip ons with a suit.
So you could look at the date while you sign stuff. Look to the left, write with your right. Basically, wear the watch opposite the hand you write with. I may have made that up, but it sounds reasonable. And @Dave K There's nothing wrong with slip ons with a suit...
There is unless you sell used cars, you’re Asian or have all the style of a Bulgarian business man. I brought a watch in Switzerland and was trying to get it back no tax. Had one on each wrist. “This one is on China time, this one is on German time, the gmt is on us time. I don’t trust apple.” Got a smirk, and got through. . My brother loves his oris.
No different than Louis V not ever having sales and destroying their unsold obsolete products vs having an outlet. When getting my MBA we reviewed a case study on Calvin Klein. The summary was they started selling in places like Costco and even though they picked up huge volume overall it killed the value of the brand. There are also other factors like keeping the size of your manufacturing footprint manageable to ensure quality, delivery, etc is in control. The old say that you can go bankrupt just as easy with too much business as you can not having enough. Coming from automotive industry Toyota is the master at ramping up new products in an extremely regimented fashion. Other OEM’s will cave to pressures of bean counters needing vehicles on lots to get some cash in for the next quarter, etc and it ends up being a short term solution for cash flow that kills them in warranty and customer dissatisfaction down the road. Managing growth is extremely difficult in business, especially the manufacturing side of it.