Mode9 UK Limited, which has distributed watch brands in the Caribbean region and Alaska for more than 10 years, has announced it will be entering the UK market, with a view to trading Nowley watches, initially.
At Basel this year, the trader signed up with Evaco SA to distribute its brands, Continental and Everswiss in the UK.
Mode9 said it felt the time was right to begin distributing in the UK, given that is where it is based. While it has been trading since 2004, marketing in the UK is a new territory for Mode9. It decided to begin with a European-based brand in order to keep logistics as smooth and simple as possible and selected Nowley as an entry-level price-point brand.
Following the global financial crash eight years ago, which affected the Caribbean market severely, a number of Mode9’s smaller clients either stopped buying or closed down. It discontinued carrying the Accurist and Kipling brands during this time. The distributor said that sales of Storm watches continued and kept it going through the difficult economic period. It added that the watch is now being sold on 12 islands in the Caribbean.
According to Mode9, business started to improve again in the Caribbean during the 2013/2014 season. In 2015, it began shipping Storm watches to customers’ stores in Alaska. Since then it has looked to increase the number of brands that it distributes and signed up Nowley of Spain, Oxygen of France, and reconnected with Rodania of Belgium.
