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?

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