45 US Patek dealers headed to 32 by end of the year

[Gebbeth]

They are all headed to very limited numbers of boutique stores that are owned or co-owned by the watchmakers.

Rolex is headed this way after their Bucherer purchase, and Patek would have done something similar had Rolex not moved first.

The days of the independent AD selling high end popular models are dead.

HOWEVER, the history of brands thinking they can do this on their own and rub their noses at their retail partners are littered with failures.

Nike lost a ton of market value and sales when they tried to do the same, and now they are going back, hat in hand, when market sentiment changed toward other brands like Hoka, New Balance, Brooks, ASICs, etc. The consumer also got sick of $300 to $God Knows What priced limited edition kicks that strangely the same secondary players were snatching up and reselling for many times their retail prices.

Sound familiar?

These watch brands really need to watch out what they are doing to their customer and distribution base.

[scurfa]

I agree they are crazy, I’m sacked from Patek but the latest offerings are woeful, I will never buy another Nike product ever you have loads of new up and coming brands to choose from, time to move on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[dpj17]

Originally Posted by Gebbeth

They are all headed to very limited numbers of boutique stores that are owned or co-owned by the watchmakers.

Rolex is headed this way after their Bucherer purchase, and Patek would have done something similar had Rolex not moved first.

The days of the independent AD selling high end popular models are dead.

HOWEVER, the history of brands thinking they can do this on their own and rub their noses at their retail partners are littered with failures.

Nike lost a ton of market value and sales when they tried to do the same, and now they are going back, hat in hand, when market sentiment changed toward other brands like Hoka, New Balance, Brooks, ASICs, etc. The consumer also got sick of $300 to $God Knows What priced limited edition kicks that strangely the same secondary players were snatching up and reselling for many times their retail prices.

Sound familiar?

These watch brands really need to watch out what they are doing to their customer and distribution base.

This is a wonderful analogy and spot on. Not to mention, these brands set a lot of this in motion when the market was in full mania mode. Now they are opening up stand alone stores in the middle of a significant downturn where inventory is starting to back up everywhere. I understand the want to control the retail aspect of your business and "know" your csutomer inside and out. However, having that wholesale client, ie. AD's, you are guaranteed to sell everything you make at a certain % every single year, even in a downturn. We shall see where this goes but I agree with the post above, this is going to get very dicey very soon.