Watches of Switzerland Group’s deputy CEO and president for North America, David Hurley, has praised the initiative by Rolex to provide ‘Exhibition Only’ watches that are displayed — but not for sale — at its authorised dealers.
Mr Hurley runs the Mayors chain of jewellers in Florida along with monobrand and multibrand properties for Watches of Switzerland in New York, Boston, Texas, Connecticut and Las Vegas.
The operation turned over $578 million last year.
Most watches displayed today in Rolex stores run by authorised dealers worldwide are not for sale.
Customers can try on these exhibition-only watches and plead their case to be added to a waiting list, but the chances of them walking in as a new client and walking out with their long-cherished Rolex are slim.
The situation prompted WATCHPRO to declare that Rolex is no longer a retail brand earlier this year.
The Rolex shortage is not of the brand’s making, nor is it caused by retailers hoarding watches.
In reality, the market has been overwhelmed by demand for a number of years so watches are, in effect, pre-sold to retailers’ most lucrative customers before they even arrive at stores.
They are kept in safes before being collected by customers rather than put on display.
Customers may be frustrated, and store staff under strain from constantly disappointing them, but Rolex authorised dealers have never had it so good.
The same number of watches are being allocated to them, and they are all being sold in record time and at all-time high prices.
“We’re continuing to get a good supply of Rolex timepieces, it’s just that demand is exceeding it,” Mr Hurley says in an interview with Yahoo Finance.
Customers have to purchase more and more to have any chance of moving up so-called waiting lists.
These lists are nothing like a waiting list you might have at a supermarket counter where your number will come up in order.
The only way to move to the top of a waiting list and get a hot watch is to keep spending on other stuff; ideally high margin jewellery or less desirable timepieces.
For a brand built on being accessible to moderately well-off customers — doctors, dentists, small business owners, bankers with bonuses, etc — Rolex has become inaccessible to all but the super-rich or experts at playing the system.
This is not the story customers are being told by Rolex authorised dealers.
“Sometimes [customers] have to wait a little bit of time and they have to patient, but we want to keep that dream alive that people can get that timepiece that they want. We’re in a very fortunate position that we get to make a lot of people very happy on a daily basis, so that’s a great pleasure,” Mr Hurley says.
As for Exhibition-Only watches?
Mr Hurley is a fan. “I think the exhibition timepieces that are being put into the stores are great because it allows people to try on these timepieces,” he says.
I have a genuine respect and admiration for Watches of Switzerland, but I do not like to be played for the fool, and I don’t suspect others do either. Toeing the line for the manufacturer and proselytizing their pre-packaged message to consumers adds insult to injury, and undermines credibility; a characteristic important to consumers today, and especially luxury goods consumers. Maybe I’m a different breed, but as industry guy, I would have put my mind in gear before I put my mouth in motion on that one. People prefer transparency, even if its not the message they want to hear.
The phenomenon you have described in the article, Rob, reading “Customers have to purchase more and more to have any chance of moving up so-called waiting lists….The only way to move to the top of a waiting list and get a hot watch is to keep spending on other stuff; ideally high margin jewellery or less desirable timepieces”, is called “pay-to-pay”. Rolex does not have a monopoly on this. (Take Hermes for example.) I’m not saying that’s good or bad. In fact, its logical as a business operator. You want to reward your best customers. Who can rebuff that?
But don’t be disingenuous or smarmy with your public declarations trying to explain that away. It just makes you look obviously and patently bad. That’s all.