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Europa Star

Watch prices: it’s the fault of…

REPORT

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January 2017


Watch prices: it's the fault of…

It’s the fault of… It is true that any number of reasons of all kinds, a whole interwoven knot of reasons, have placed the watchmaking industry in a difficult situation (to say the least) at the start of 2017.

W

hen various reasons accumulate and you cannot put your finger on one single enemy (as it was possible to do during the quartz crisis, whether justified or not), it is a sign that we are on the brink of profound upheavals, structural transformations, social change.

And behind it all is the burning question that everyone is asking themselves to a greater or lesser extent: have people fallen out of love with watches? And if so, how can we win back their hearts?

Watch prices: it's the fault of…

It’s the fault of…

  • the state of the world economy
  • the transparency required of banks: no more under-the-counter buyers
  • disenchantment with watchmaking, especially on the part of women
  • long-term changes to world distribution channels
  • Chinese politics and tourists
  • e-commerce, digitisation, dematerialisation
  • management problems: after 35 years of plain sailing, nobody knows how to sail into the wind
  • rising prices and margins
  • overcapacit y by subcontractors
  • dwindling purchasing power in Western countries and the Middle East
  • a strong franc which has killed the Swiss domestic market
  • huge stocks in distribution
  • centralised decision-making, an obsession with control, loss of innovation, depersonalisation, emailed marketing plans, no genuine rallying of the markets, imperfect knowledge of buyers, top-down marketing instead of the other way round
  • lack of anticipation by the groups, which failed to foresee the structural changes currently taking place
  • the hegemony of groups
  • democratisation of luxury, which consequently is no longer rare
  • identical boutiques the world over

FEATURED IN THIS SPECIAL WATCH PRICES REPORT:

- The great upheaval
- Reshuffling the price cards
- Price constellation
- It’s the fault of…
- An objective look
- Denis Asch “I wanted to sell watches, not prices”
- Price hike between 2000 and 2010, then the slump
- All china’s fault?
- “As soon as a price goes up, they look elsewhere”
- The internet has changed the rules of distribution
- To raise or lower prices?
- A paradigm shift for distribution
- “Retailers need to turn into gallery owners”

Source: Europa Star TIME.BUSINESS/TIME.KEEPER Dec. 2016 - Jan. 2017