Click and collect

EXCLUSIVE: Which jewellers and watch shops are still offering click and collect?

Over two thirds of Britain and Ireland’s biggest jewellery and watch retailers are still offering click and collect during the current lock down.

This country’s largest operator, The Watches of Switzerland Group, is offering click and collect from 42 of its stores under the Mappin & Webb, Goldsmiths and Watches of Switzerland brands.

In London, Bucherer, Harrods and Selfridges are all taking orders for luxury watches that can be collected at stores.

WatchPro checked the options for ecommerce, deliveries and click and collect at the largest 24 watch retail businesses this morning, a day after The Telegraph reported that click and collect services could be restricted to supermarkets only.

Fifteen out of the 25 retailers said on their websites that customers could shop online and arrange for goods to be collected from stores.

Those offering click and collect are Laings, Bucherer, Watches of Switzerland, Mappin & Webb, Goldsmiths (42 stores, around half of the Watches of Switzerland Group network in the UK), Beaverbrooks (13 stores only), F.Hinds, Ernest Jones, Fraser Hart (5 stores only), Pragnell, Prestons, Rox, Selfridges, Harrods, T.H. Baker and David M Robinson (for watch purchases worth over £4,000).

Lunn’s in Northern Ireland, Wier & Sons in Ireland, Boodles, Chisholm Hunter, Berry’s and H. Samuel are not offering click and collect, according to their websites.

The Telegraph reported on January 12 that click and collect services could be banned everywhere apart from supermarkets and “essential retail” under proposals discussed by ministers.

It is understood that scaling back the use of collection services for restaurants and takeaway services, as well as non-essential retailers, was raised as part of the Cabinet sub-committee known as “Covid O” on Sunday, the paper — known to have close links to Boris Johnson’s administration — suggested.

Clienteling and click and collect are a lifeline for watch shops, particularly at the prestige end of the market, because it allows customers and retailers to meet and safely hand over watches that might otherwise need to be delivered by couriers. Many customers are reluctant to trust goods worth thousands of pounds to the country’s army of drivers.

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