From war-torn Germany to the high society of Dallas, Rob Corder discovers how Lawrence Bock and his family grew Bachendorf’s into a Texan watch and jewelry giant in three generations.
WATCHPRO: Before we get into the news about your newly refurbished and showroom at The Galleria in Dallas, could you set the scene for us and give us a quick history of Bachendorf’s?
LAWRENCE BOCK, OWNER AND CEO OF BACHENDORF’S: We have been here since World War II when my grandfather Abram Bock, father Harry and his daughter Ali emigrated from Germany in 1947.
My grandfather was in the watch and jewelry business before the War, so our relationship with Swiss watchmakers and diamond jewelers from all around Europe goes back to the early 20th century.
Because of his historic relationships in Europe, after the War my grandfather was offered a seal by the Consulate of Switzerland that would have given him the right to import Swiss watch movements into the United States. He was one of only three people at the time to be offered one of these seals.
However, he was angry with the Swiss government because, during World War II when he was in a concentration camp, he had sent money to the Swiss to protect his nest egg but they used that money to pay Swiss watch manufacturers that should have been paid by the Hitler regime that he had been working for before the War.
The Swiss offered him the seal, which would have given him $1.50 for every Swiss movement that he exported to the United States.
But my grandfather never used it, saying that he did not want to deal with people who had cheated him out of his nest egg.
The story goes that he used to go to sleep every night for two years in the concentration camp dreaming of the $64,000 he had in Switzerland, which ended up evaporating.
In the mid-1950s they ended the seal system as trade opened up between Switzerland and the United States. We discovered this when we were researching our history and learned about the seal and its value before it was revoked. That is how we found out that my grandfather never took advantage of it.
However, he had these relationships with Europeans back in the 1920s so was able to expand from a jewelry repair business launched as A. Bock Manufacturing, to a jeweler named Bock Jewelry Co.
My father Harry studied in St. Louis, MI, and then moved back to Dallas and joined the family business in 1955 and developed a gift for buying and marketing diamonds, which helped to grow the company.
We opened our first Bachendorf’s store in 1977 and went into the Galleria in the 1980s, which was the Mecca of Dallas. Our showroom had Rolex, Cartier and all the major brands back then.
WP: I don’t suppose those stores in the 1980s bore any resemblance to the way watches are sold today.
Lawrence Bock: Rolex and all the other brands were presented in our own six-to-12 foot showcases.
In 2002 I was in Basel with Rolex and they were debuting a new branded corner unit. We took that and became one of the first retailers in North America to give Rolex a dedicated 800-square -foot space to put a Rolex corner in.
That was over 20 years ago, and we had jewelers coming into Dallas from all over the country to see it. It became a bit of a launch pad for how the modern Rolex corners and shop-in-shops that you see today came in.
Before we installed it, we had a crystal store in the Galleria, but I decided we should give that up and convert it to Rolex, which was by then generating a huge percentage of our sales.
They earned that square footage and we were delighted to give it to them. Today we have expanded in this new Galleria showroom with around 1,800 square feet for a Rolex shop-in-shop.
WP: Can you explain where the Bachendorf’s name came from when the family name is Bock and the company name was Bock as well?
Lawrence Bock: My dad was an immigrant in Dallas, and he looked in the phone book and saw that there were only six Bocks listed there. He thought that if he opened a jewelry store called Bock’s, somebody with a problem could look in the White Pages and call every Bock in the city until they found him.
Perhaps because he was a concentration camp survivor, he didn’t want anybody to find him that easily. So he chose the old German name of Bachendorf for the stores so that he would remain anonymous.
WP: Moving the story along to the present day, you are the third-generation custodian of the Bachendorf’s business.
Lawrence Bock: I am third generation and my daughter Fallon, who works with us now, is fourth generation.
WP: How does the business look today and what are your most important pillars for success?
Lawrence Bock: We have three Bachendorf’s showrooms, a Rolex boutique in Highland Park Village and our corporate office where we have manufacturing and a private space to meet customers.
We bring high quality watches to our clients and — using our relationships and business acumen — we are confident we can get the right watches onto the right wrists.
We might have a guy calling to ask about a Rolex GMT for his 18-year-old son, and we may ask him whether that is the right watch for him to be taking with him to college.
It might be better for him to be starting out with an Omega, a Breitling or an Oyster Perpetual. There will be plenty of time for him to move into the GMTs and Daytonas as he goes through life. We like to take people on that journey whether that is in watches or jewelry.
Having relationships with the brands is vital. I have been working with the executives as Rolex, Richemont and all the other brands we represent. We go a long way back with all of them. We spoke about Rolex, but we were also among the first 19 people to bring Panerai to the United States.
It helps that these relationships have been decades in the making so that, regardless of different people coming and going at the brands, we are here and have a really good stake in the ground in our territory.
We added Zenith to our new Galleria showroom selection. I hadn’t dealt with them before, but they know that we are going to bring the right level of service and professionalism to that brand.
We are capitalized in such a way that we never have to worry about whether we can buy a watch at any time. There are 17,000 jewelers in America, and not all of them are at our level.
WP: Watches of Switzerland bought Timeless Luxury in Plano, not so far from you. How do you feel about that?
Lawrence Bock: Business is all about relationships. Once we get through all of the current hype, we will get back to focusing on what we always did, which is offering great products and services around special occasions like weddings, birthdays, graduations and Christmas.
These are the dates that make people want to buy something special, which is what we offer. We have modernized our systems to capture all of that information, which gives us a much stronger connection to our customers than the bigger players.
We do not have thousands of people on waiting lists. We just have customers that we know are the right wrists waiting for the right watches.
WP: You have a Rolex boutique in Highland Park. What have you learnt in three years since you opened that store?
Lawrence Bock: The most important thing is that we have to handle many customers walking in and very few of them walking out with a watch. Our job is to make sure those people that had to walk out without a watch have the feeling that they still may get one in time.
We want to keep the Rolex dream alive. There are 200 to 250 people per week walking out without a Rolex, and we want them to feel valued and confident that we are going to get the right watch to them down the line.
WP: Being a Rolex AD is a privilege that people work hard to achieve and work even harder to maintain. The benefits are far greater than simply selling Rolex watches, the brand has a halo effect over the entire business. How does that manifest itself at Bachendorf’s?
Lawrence Bock: Rolex certainly does bring clients into stores. When we opened our Rolex boutique, our other showroom two miles away in Preston Center lost Rolex so we had a hole to fill. We filled that gap with pre-owned Rolex, which has done a good job and kept the traffic flowing.
When you are not a Rolex AD, you have to use other things to build your traffic. There are around 300 Rolex ADs in the United States, which means there are an awful lot of jewelers that are not Rolex ADs and they have found a way to keep business flowing.
We do that through reaching out to our loyal customers and encouraging them to come in for those special occasion purchases.
On the diamond side, we say that we buy the most expensive diamonds inexpensively. That is our niche. Our competitors might be buying the least expensive diamonds so that they can sell them cheaply.
WP: You mentioned pre-owned. Are you interested and in the queue to join the Rolex CPO program?
Lawrence Bock: We are in line for that, but they are starting with the bigger partners. It is obvious to us that, if you have three Rolex doors, you should be in Rolex certified pre-owned.
WP: Now that Galleria is complete, what is next for Bachendorf’s. It feels like every retailers I speak to these days spends as much time in a hi-vis jacket and hard hat as they do in a suit and tie?
Lawrence Bock: I have been in construction for the past six years. Next is expanding our Fort Worth store, which is performing very well. When opportunities come to us, we evaluate them. I am not looking to move into other markets and step on the toes of any other jewelers.
WP: Do you feel you have the right line-up of jewelry and watch brands? Is it always under review?
Lawrence Bock: The brand line up is always evolving. One of the questions we face is that a number of the biggest brands now want to have their own stores. That is a factor in any decision we make on which brands to take on.
WP: Brands such as Omega, Breitling and TAG Heuer do not necessarily want to open their own internal boutiques. I expect they are open to opening franchised stores with partners of your stature and history. Might you go in that direction?
Lawrence Bock: Yes, if the location and the city is suitable, we would absolutely do that.