On January 22, 2018 Richemont announced its intent to purchase the remaining shares it doesn’t already own of online luxury retailer YOOX Net-A-Porter Group (YNAP). There’s much more to this story than just a corporate acquisition. This is as much about Amazon and how fine timepieces will be sold in the future as it is about the online sales of luxury goods between two industry giants.
Friends, colleagues, and clients have posed many questions about the grey market for fine timepieces over the years. Most recently, my post ‘A Cautionary Tale on Buying New Watches Online’ was met with quite a few comments, quite possibly leaving more questions than answers. Here are a few answers.
There are two main problems in watch journalism as I see things today – and this is from the viewpoint of a watch enthusiast, watch collector, (former) watch brand social media manager, watch publisher, watch photographer, and watch journalist: 1) low average quality of horological articles and 2) often obscure incentives. What might be done? Here are some possible answers.
There was a small horological polemic recently out of Geneva caused by an employment advert from a high-end watch brand looking for a “chargé d’industrialisation métiers d’art.” First they industrialized horological crafts, now it’s the arts. What’s next?
Chris Malburg set out to buy his wife a watch. After many happy years of marriage to a lovely woman it was time. He knows enough about her and her tastes to take the leap. Or does he? If you’re a female reader you probably already know this ends badly. If you’re a guy, keep reading. Showing up is 80 percent, and you just showed up.
Limited editions used to be a rarity, but they started to become more popular in late 1980s and early 1990s, almost like a snowball rolling down a hill that gets bigger and bigger. Can we still take them seriously?
Influencers have been around for as long as humankind exists, but where in previous centuries this power was mostly in the hands of nobility, priests, elected officials, or successful entrepreneurs, it is now wielded by teenagers with a camera and an Instagram account.
The Watches TV founder Marc-André Deschoux shares his own thoughts on brand ambassadors, starting with the Tudor/David Beckham association, which he personally felt was counterproductive: so much so that the announcement pushed him to not make a Tudor purchase he was leaning toward.
Waking up one morning with my coffee, I was scrolling through the headlines on ‘Business Insider’ when I came across a post entitled “Science Says You Shouldn’t Buy Luxury Brands.” With all due respect to author Elizabeth Lang: I thought, screw science and buy luxury watches!
Over the last couple of years, and even over the last few weeks, there have been ripples in the watch retailing universe – a trickle of initiatives that may (or may not) quickly turn into a flood. Are brands and/or groups finally ready to take the plunge and fully commit to embracing internet sales?