The team behind Collectingcars.com, an online auction site for rare vintage cars, is turning its hand to luxury watches.
Collecting Cars is reported to have notched sales of almost £50 million in its first 18 months of trading; explosive growth attributed to its business model of rolling timed auctions and rock bottom fees for buyers and sellers.
Founder Edward Lovett says he will use the same strategy to appeal to passionate collectors of timepieces with WatchCollecting.com.
“Having shaken up the car auction industry, we are looking to bring the same level of disruption to the world of collectible watches. The latest identity verification technology allows us to create a trusted online community for buying and selling watches at a fraction of the commissions charged by the traditional auctioneers,” Mr Lovett says.
Adrian Hailwood (pictured top), former head of watches at Fellows and Dreweatts auctioneers, will oversee the WatchCollecting.com team.
The online auction site will use the same bespoke platform developed for Collecting Cars. The operation is supported by a CRM system, which is designed to get cars, and now watches, sold quickly.
WatchCollecting.com is working with Experian for customer identity verification and will use the Art Loss Register to ensure watches are legitimately owned by each seller.
“WatchCollecting.com is creating a secure, accountable space for watches to be bought and sold with complete transparency,” the company says.
It aims to significantly undercut the commission and fees charged by traditional auction houses by charging just 5% plus VAT (with a minimum charge of £600) on each watch sold.
A £10,000 sale with Watch Collecting would return £9,400 to the person consigning it to an online auction.
The site goes live in March 2021 with its first auction, and is currently encouraging collectors to register their interest.
Very good luck with the launch Adrian.