Retail


“We are a service company, not a supermarket”

BRICK & CLICK

Français
October 2017


“We are a service company, not a supermarket”

A testimonial by Pablo Fuster, Relojería Alemana, in Mallorca (Spain).

“O

ur boutique was founded back in 1879 by a German entrepreneur, Mr. Krug. My great-grandfather started working with him, then our family took up the reins of the business, and today I represent the fourth generation along with my two sisters. At that time, Mallorca was less touristy; it was first and foremost a shop for local people. We’ve represented Rolex uninterrupted for 75 years.

“We are a service company, not a supermarket”

We’ve developed well and today we have four boutiques on the island, with more than 50 employees, including six watchmakers. We also operate the Cartier boutique on the island. The type of customer depends on the geographical location of the shop. In the centre of Palma, it’s 50% locals and 50% tourists; in the seaside resorts the customer base is mainly tourists, of course.
We’re growing continuously, because we don’t depend on Chinese customers; we have a well-defined territory and a good mix of nationalities among our clients (more and more Scandinavians in recent years). And more and more tourists who are turning away from countries such as Egypt and Tunisia for security reasons are coming to Mallorca.

We’ve set up an internal online inventory management system. It’s for our own use only for the moment, but we’re going to be using that know-how in the next twelve months to launch our e-commerce platform. The internal system serves as a kind of ‘test’. We have yet to decide whether the watches will be sold directly online and delivered to homes or stores. That will depend on our talks with our partners.

“We are a service company, not a supermarket”

The brands have a certain tendency to want to appropriate more and more tasks for themselves: that’s why some have opened their own boutiques. But our five main partners trust retailers like us. We deliver a retail experience and service, like consultants.

We offer over 30 brands. It’s difficult to keep up to date about everything on every one of them, especially with growing numbers of references and increasingly knowledgeable customers. People’s behaviour is changing: more and more customers are coming in with a photo of the watch they want on their smartphone. But we view ourselves first and foremost as a service company, not a supermarket… We try to be as close as possible to our customers. The luxury experience springs from the highly original, futuristic architecture of our boutiques, for example, or from private events.”

ABOUT
Name: Relojería Alemana
Boutiques: Mallorca
Launch date: 1879
Category: Haut et moyen de gamme
Brands: Audemars Piguet, Baume & Mercier, Bulgari, Cartier, Chanel, Chopard, Corum, Hublot, IWC, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Longines, Omega, Panerai, Patek Philippe, Rolex, Sevenfriday, TAG Heuer, Tudor, Ulysse Nardin, Zenith

Website: www.relojeriaalemana.com