Bucherer

These are challenging times for luxury Swiss watch retailers and brands, but the current Coronavirus crisis is an opportunity, says Bucherer's ever-optimistic chief commercial officer Patrick Graf in conversation with Rob Corder. A much greater focus on domestic customers in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Switzerland is giving the business better balance, and growth of certified pre-owned luxury watches and ecommerce is preparing it for a very different future, Mr Graf says in this month's Big Interview.

WatchPro's search continues for the perfect blue watches to consider in 2020, officially Pantone's year of Classic Blue.

Retail partners of the brands are thought to have signed the leases on properties in the fashionable New York neighborhood.

With the takeover of Tourneau in January 2018, Bucherer was able to benefit from the US watch retailer’s long-standing expertise in the CPO market.

Almost two years after Bucherer bought Tourneau, we are not much closer to knowing what the new owner has in mind for the United States. In a search for clues, Rob Corder spoke to the chairman of Bucherer in the UK, David Coleridge, whose multibrand group of luxury watch stores, The Watch Gallery, was acquired by Bucherer in 2017. In a fascinating interview, he pulls back the curtain on his relationship with the major watch groups, the lack of decision-making power in his local market and the reasons why direct to consumer sales online and in monobrand stores are stalling around the world.

Direct to consumer ecommerce by watch brands is also under fire as branded online stores fail to fire.

"The view in Switzerland is that the UK is a very good market — disciplined, growing well and consistently high quality of presentation. As a market overall, I think we are favored," says CEO Brian Duffy.

London flagship, owned an operated by Bucherer, adopts Rolex's latest interior and exterior design signatures.