Are AP Price Cuts on the Horizon?

[WatchEater666]

APs are dropping fast 2nd hand.

Once people no longer think they can own an AP without losing money, sales of new AP will tank.

It's not a linear demand curve.

[Vince_76]

Originally Posted by WatchEater666

APs are dropping fast 2nd hand.

Once people no longer think they can own an AP without losing money, sales of new AP will tank.

It's not a linear demand curve.

I frankly tend to agree. There’s a huge cohort of casual enthusiast and lay people who like watches, but really purchase based on value retention/appreciation. If that’s not there, then the bottom falls out on all these buyers

[SMD]

Originally Posted by WatchEater666

APs are dropping fast 2nd hand.

Once people no longer think they can own an AP without losing money, sales of new AP will tank.

It's not a linear demand curve.

If you can’t or don’t want to buy a watch because you could lose some money, then you never should have been buying in the first place. Hopefully this flushes out the COVID Kmart shoppers in the market.

[mikeawesome]

Originally Posted by SMD

If you can’t or don’t want to buy a watch because you could lose some money, then you never should have been buying in the first place. Hopefully this flushes out the COVID Kmart shoppers in the market.

100% agreed

[mikeawesome]

Originally Posted by Octagon Guy

Adjusting prices down leaves a more sour taste for their loyal Boutique clients who bought from them at higher prices. It's as if getting played out big time by the Boutiques themselves. Boutiques have no control over market prices but the least they can do is, maintaining their own retail price when economy is not doing well.

Raising prices on the other hand, though priced out many above average income clients, but they do not have a lack of ultra rich clients to sell to.

My 2 cents.

Same thing with Tesla dropping the prices on some of their models tens of thousands of dollars last year.

[WatchEater666]

Originally Posted by SMD

If you can’t or don’t want to buy a watch because you could lose some money, then you never should have been buying in the first place. Hopefully this flushes out the COVID Kmart shoppers in the market.

Yes the bottom is going to fall out for ap.

After all, how many good customers did AP piss off by making them write essays and visit 483839 times in person?

I personally know a handful of people that bought from AP before or owned one and spend $500k+ on watches every year or so with zero interest in AP now because they lost their history with the dealers being cut or similar games.

Personally will probably buy a 2nd hand RO in a year or so again. I like my Millenary a lot but some my other RO.

[John Doyle]

You all sound bitter, sorry. You have to pay to play with the one watch company. Price cuts or raises should not influence your decision in buying an AP at retail at all.

[Liza]

Originally Posted by WatchEater666

APs are dropping fast 2nd hand.

Once people no longer think they can own an AP without losing money, sales of new AP will tank.

It's not a linear demand curve.

i fully agree with this.
I am a shareholder of one of the "hot" independents which traded well above retail right after covid. Now, our "hype" watch has moved just below retail. As a result, we have seen the order book decreased by over 70%. The demand is indeed not linear and the majority of the waitlists are occupied by flippers.

AP has increased prices dramatically in the last few years. The steel RO QP used to retail in the mid 60s in 2020 and it now retails above 110k. The precious metal version retails over 150k. I suspect this is a prime candidate for a price decrease. Precious metal RO Chrono retailing near 80k is another candidate.

On the other hand, this is not limited to AP. Patek charges over 85k for the 5172G which is a manual wind chrono on a strap. 5320g retails near 100k. Both of these watches can be found on the 2ndary market for 30-40% off. Time only Calatrave 5226 for over 40k. YG 5270 near 200k. And on and on and on.

Both of these brands will eventually have to reduce prices.

[Lemarp]

Originally Posted by John Doyle

You all sound bitter, sorry. You have to pay to play with the one watch company. Price cuts or raises should not influence your decision in buying an AP at retail at all.

Let's say you're a collector. Prices rise like crazy and you've been told to pound sand. Finally your ticket comes up and you get the call because the floor has fallen out of the resale market. You go in on Monday to buy a new AP at retail, then Tuesday you find that the price has gone down 10%.

This isn't all that far stretched of a scenario for many collectors if we do see a cut.

[SMD]

Originally Posted by John Doyle

You all sound bitter, sorry. You have to pay to play with the one watch company. Price cuts or raises should not influence your decision in buying an AP at retail at all.

Trolls gotta be trollin

[Octagon Guy]

Originally Posted by mikeawesome

Same thing with Tesla dropping the prices on some of their models tens of thousands of dollars last year.

Tesla or any other brands, for any products, can be doing the same. But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

[~JJ]

Originally Posted by John Doyle

You all sound bitter, sorry. You have to pay to play with the one watch company. Price cuts or raises should not influence your decision in buying an AP at retail at all.

Classic Doyle

[VogelPhoenix]

Originally Posted by WatchEater666

I personally know a handful of people that bought from AP before or owned one and spend $500k+ on watches every year or so with zero interest in AP now because they lost their history with the dealers being cut or similar games.

When did that happen? AP moved to their boutique model just before the 2020-2022 hype years and their dealer (=boutique/AP house) network has been much more stable than for PP or Rolex, who have been cutting dealers left and right.

[VogelPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Liza

AP has increased prices dramatically in the last few years. The steel RO QP used to retail in the mid 60s in 2020 and it now retails above 110k. The precious metal version retails over 150k. I suspect this is a prime candidate for a price decrease. Precious metal RO Chrono retailing near 80k is another candidate.

There will (supposedly) be a new QP movement soon, so although the price hikes have been excessive, I don't think the current QP models will see any price action downward before the new ones arrive.

The PM ROC is cheaper than the PM Overseas Chrono and far less than the Nautilus chrono, so I don't see AP feeling the urge to drop the price for that one. I think they have pushed a bit too far on the ceramic case ROOs, but given the limited nature of those, that's fiddling at the margins.

[mickyd329]

Originally Posted by SMD

If you can’t or don’t want to buy a watch because you could lose some money, then you never should have been buying in the first place. Hopefully this flushes out the COVID Kmart shoppers in the market.

100% When this all shakes out, collectors will get back to enjoying the hobby.

[NYG1121]

Free markets will always fluctuate. I think what happened the past 2-3 years was a clear anomaly and we are in the process of going back to some normalcy. Whether they go all the way back to pre-2018 levels or continue to maintain decent residual value relative to MSRP is to be determined. AP and other companies can only control so much of this as it is highly economy and sentiment dependent.

I also do think if there is a piece that someone has been waiting to come back down to some reality over the past years, no harm in just going for it now if the price is reasonable as it is impossible to "time" the markets.

[SpeedyTuomas]

Well at least the 16202 has hundreds of guys waiting at every boutique. I would understand dropping the price on 11.59 as I assume no-one wants it.

[justdate]

AP exploited the market situation more brazenly than other brands IMO, and made it hard for many customers to get a watch without games - even those who had been loyal to the brand before the market changed.

I was one of those customers having purchased 3 APs since 2014 and had some really bad experiences. It definitely left a very bad taste in the mouth and I do resent them a bit for it - it sucks to be treated badly when you are spending tens of thousands of pounds. But at the same time I love quite a few of their watches, so went back.

That being said I will not feel at all sorry for them when the inevitable market trends change.

[NYG1121]

Originally Posted by justdate

AP exploited the market situation more brazenly than other brands IMO, and made it hard for many customers to get a watch without games - even those who had been loyal to the brand before the market changed.

I was one of those customers having purchased 3 APs since 2014 and had some really bad experiences. It definitely left a very bad taste in the mouth and I do resent them a bit for it - it sucks to be treated badly when you are spending tens of thousands of pounds. But at the same time I love quite a few of their watches, so went back.

That being said I will not feel at all sorry for them when the inevitable market trends change.

Yeah same. I have documented in my previous posts about how annoyed I have been with how they have handled previous pre-hype customers. After a new store opened up in my city, I was told to switch to them from my previous boutique and after 2 years of zero opportunities for an allocation, I sold my last remaining AP in my collection a few years ago honestly in spite.

So I am not talking about boutique.. just secondary market prices. I am still sour enough that I don't feel like going in begging for watches anymore at the boutique and instead would rather just pay the market price now that they are a bit more reasonable.

[NB614]

The rose gold deployant clasp used for the 26420 had a price decrease sometime between the middle of September to end of November 2023.

Original msrp (in USD) was $8,491 and then reduced to $6,227 (please note this may be after my local sales tax of 8.25%).

While very expensive I would say it is well worth it. I probably would not wear my 26420OR without the deployant clasp.

[WatchEater666]

Originally Posted by John Doyle

You all sound bitter, sorry. You have to pay to play with the one watch company. Price cuts or raises should not influence your decision in buying an AP at retail at all.

I have been running and investing in consumer brands for 10 years. Not bitter, just know exactly what they tried and can see plainly how it will blow up.

[iten]

Originally Posted by NB614

The rose gold deployant clasp used for the 26420 had a price decrease sometime between the middle of September to end of November 2023.

Original msrp (in USD) was $8,491 and then reduced to $6,227 (please note this may be after my local sales tax of 8.25%).

While very expensive I would say it is well worth it. I probably would not wear my 26420OR without the deployant clasp.

Interesting...I got my 26420CE in May and wanted a deployant clasp but was scared away by the price. I think 6K is still a lot and my leather strap is all worn out already...

[SpeedyTuomas]

Originally Posted by iten

Interesting...I got my 26420CE in May and wanted a deployant clasp but was scared away by the price. I think 6K is still a lot and my leather strap is all worn out already...

6K for a strap? That is just offensive. I would expect one free especially if it does not last.

[SMD]

Originally Posted by SpeedyTuomas

6K for a strap? That is just offensive. I would expect one free especially if it does not last.

Solid gold deployant clasp is not a strap

[TNG]

Give it another year and they will be handing out RO's on first walk ins.

[Johndong888]

Originally Posted by WatchEater666

Yes the bottom is going to fall out for ap.

After all, how many good customers did AP piss off by making them write essays and visit 483839 times in person?

I personally know a handful of people that bought from AP before or owned one and spend $500k+ on watches every year or so with zero interest in AP now because they lost their history with the dealers being cut or similar games.

Personally will probably buy a 2nd hand RO in a year or so again. I like my Millenary a lot but some my other RO.

I’m upset at AP too. I was still getting RMs and Rolexes. Nothing for myself at AP nyc. And I visited them the most out of all the boutiques.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Johndong888]

Originally Posted by NYG1121

Yeah same. I have documented in my previous posts about how annoyed I have been with how they have handled previous pre-hype customers. After a new store opened up in my city, I was told to switch to them from my previous boutique and after 2 years of zero opportunities for an allocation, I sold my last remaining AP in my collection a few years ago honestly in spite.

So I am not talking about boutique.. just secondary market prices. I am still sour enough that I don't feel like going in begging for watches anymore at the boutique and instead would rather just pay the market price now that they are a bit more reasonable.

Been waiting for any RO QP for 3 years now. They weren’t even hot when I first asked. Then it became hot when everything went up so naturally harder. So I got a piece for the wifey to stay with the brand. Added a few more beginning simple asks. Nothing. And QP has been pretty much cheaper on the secondary now for some time. So annoyed.


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[GW44]

Originally Posted by TNG

Give it another year and they will be handing out RO's on first walk ins.

Of course they will

[WatchEater666]

Originally Posted by NYG1121

Yeah same. I have documented in my previous posts about how annoyed I have been with how they have handled previous pre-hype customers. After a new store opened up in my city, I was told to switch to them from my previous boutique and after 2 years of zero opportunities for an allocation, I sold my last remaining AP in my collection a few years ago honestly in spite.

So I am not talking about boutique.. just secondary market prices. I am still sour enough that I don't feel like going in begging for watches anymore at the boutique and instead would rather just pay the market price now that they are a bit more reasonable.

It makes no sense to me because AP can easily pull metrics like lifetime spend and when that spend occured.

Obviously prehype customer is probably stickier than your crypto-bro with temporary $ lol.

So you'd think they'd optimize around lifetime value & maintaining their existing customer base at the same time, but instead they chose to burn them.

It's the complete opposite of what most luxury brands in consumer do. Most optimize over an X year lifetime value amount.

If I can get NYG1121 to buy a watch from me worth $40,000 every 3 years, that is worth way more to me than 1 customer buying once for $70,000. And fairly quickly.

They have all the data to run this analysis quickly too.

But they are an old family run business that was subscale and not in a good spot and not impressive rev wise before this little run up.

[NB614]

Originally Posted by iten

Interesting...I got my 26420CE in May and wanted a deployant clasp but was scared away by the price. I think 6K is still a lot and my leather strap is all worn out already...

I highly recommend it. It makes the watch significantly more comfortable and adds a certain level of luxury/quality that I never felt with the normal buckle.

I always found the normal buckle to be uncomfortable, hard to use, and wore down the straps much faster.

I was lucky enough to get a refund of the price difference since my buckle was on order between September and November. I was told Switzerland needed to manufacture the buckle as there were none in North America (I guess I was the only tool foolish enough to pay $8500 for a buckle lol). Anyways, I never wore my 26420OR until the buckle came in and even without the discount I still think it would be worth it.

Once one goes to a deployant clasp, I feel they may never be able to go back!