CORDER’S COLUMN: Buying season is back

I always look forward to the big Swiss watch shows — Baselworld and SIHH back in the day, and Geneva Watch Week since we returned after the pandemic.

I say Geneva Watch Week, because there is far more going on in the city from April 8 to 14 than just Watches and Wonders up at Palexpo.

There are scores of independent watchmakers fanning out across the city, hosting meetings at shows such as Time to Watches, at gatherings of Académie Horlogère des Créateurs Indépendants members, at hotels with suites overlooking the lake and within the boutiques of Rue du Rhone.

Retailers from across the world will gather for the week, and I hope they arrive with an open mind and a mission to explore, not just an eye on what allocations they will get from Rolex.

For Watches and Wonders to keep growing, it must be an event where retailers, and to an extend journalists and the public, get inspired to try something new.

Fortunes have been made in recent years by retailers, particularly family-owned independents, narrowing their focus to fewer and fewer brands to the point where a roster of Rolex, Patek Philippe, Tudor, Omega, Breitling and TAG Heuer feels positively egalitarian nowadays.

Interestingly, the biggest retailers like Ahmed Seddiqi & Sons in the Middle East, Hour Glass in Asia and Watches of Switzerland Group and Bucherer in Europe and the United States, have swung back towards working with a bigger, broader and deeper selection of brands.

And most are pushing hard into fine and branded jewellery to reduced their exposure to watch brands that could switch overnight, or over time, from a wholesale model to selling direct to consumer.

Take a look at the brand line up on the websites of these massive groups and you will see dozens of independents listed alongside the blockbusters. I count 60 on the Seddiqi.com brand list and 61 at Watches of Switzerland.

That means dozens of relationships to maintain and scores of new collections to touch and feel (to use that awful term from Watches and Wonders).

The buying teams of these retailers will be powering around Geneva, fêted at every turn, and I urge independent retailers to see as many brands as they can as well.

Richemont’s Specialist Watchmakers generate 56% of sales directly with consumers. Cartier’s and the whole of Swatch Group’s DTC share is at 40% and rising. Even Patek Philippe is pushing an ever-rising share of its watches through its own flagships.

This direction of travel for the manufacturing conglomerates is not going to reverse, which means multibrand retailers are going to have to decide whether to continue working with them until the bitter end, or replace them with brands that are eager to grow their wholesale business.

Of course, not every independent watchmaker with a commitment to wholesale is a slam dunk, but this is where the skill and experience of buying teams comes in.

There are myriad factors that go into decisions to work with new watchmakers or buy significant quantities of new collections, but finding replacements for brands that are openly committed to competing with their wholesale partners and selling direct is more vital this year than ever before.