A German pre-owned luxury watch online sales platform has opened a physical store on London’s Piccadilly.
Chronext officially opens in London this Sunday, giving the company its first UK bricks and mortar store adding to its established stores in Cologne, in Germany, and Zug, in Switzerland.
The business, which was founded just two years ago, offers a diverse range of options including selling new watches, buying and selling pre-owned watches as well as hosting private sales online in return for a commission.
The new store at 92 Piccadilly, next to Cambridge House, will stock more than 200 watches whilst offering direct access to the company’s online stock.
Ludwig Wurlitzer, chief product officer and founder of Chronext, said: “Our approach with the London store is unique worldwide. We are the only luxury market place model globally which managed to combine classic brick and mortar retail with the fast paced nature and operations of a market place model. This will definitely also bring trust to our online experience.”
Chronext announced earlier this week that it had successfully closed a $5.3m (£3.5m) venture round of funding with investments from Partech Ventures, InVenture Partners, MGO Digital Ventures, Altus Capital and Playfair Capital.
Existing investors Capnamic Ventures and NRW.Bank, as well as several business angels, also participated in the latest funding round. The company states that the cash will be used in marketing, technology and customer service areas of the business.
Philipp Man, Chronext founder and chief executive officer, said: “We’re excited to receive a strong vote of confidence from incoming VCs who are involved with market leading e-commerce brands including Made.com, SecretSales, and Navabi. We have built a leading online marketplace with a business model that simultaneously offers fair prices, exceptional service and a level of security that is unique in the luxury watch segment. We will use the new round of funding to aggressively accelerate our expansion in our core markets.”
“In 2015 we were able to optimise our logistics and operations processes enabling us to generate substantial eight-figure annual revenue and expand our customer base tenfold this year. This has given us the right fundamentals for our next phase of rapid growth.”
While Chronext is venturing into the UK market, UK-based Watchfinder is headed in the other direction, announcing in July that it would be pushing ahead with a European expansion in 2016.
