Web-based exhibitions like April's Watches and Wonders will only work for a tiny number of brands.
Rolex dealers live in constant fear that one of their salespeople will go rogue and sell watches to the grey market.
Corder’s Column
Another season of webinars from wooden CEOs presentations fills me with dread.
Clienteling is a recognition that, at the top end of the watch and jewellery market, there are comparatively few customers whose repeat business is critical to commercial success.
Many of the lessons we have been forced to learn in 2020 can, I hope, be quickly forgotten once life returns to a new kind of normal, hopefully by Easter next year.
Next year is a barren desert stretching to a distant horizon in which there are no major promotional events planned for the entire watch industry. I do not have a single nailed on date in my calendar for next year. Nil, nothing, nada.
I feel the need for a group hug and hope that by next summer it will be possible to meet, eat, drink and mull the future of our cherished community.
Ten years ago the trade in second hand watches was a dirty little secret of the pristine primary market. Now it is every bit as luxurious as the primary sector.
Marketing is too concentrated in European HQs. They should support events around the world in 2021.
Few businesses are going to look back on 2020 with any satisfaction, but Richemont has misused the covid crisis.
