Early November in Geneva, when the autumn auction season culminates in the GPHG awards, is always a firm fixture on the watchmaking calendar, but this year saw a new player enter the fray: ReLuxury, a debut fair dedicated to the re-commerce of luxury watches, jewellery and collectibles.
Held in the heart of Geneva at the Hotel President Wilson, the fair featured over 40 exhibitors and 29 talks.
And if it felt oddly familiar to watch world veterans, that’s because ReLuxury is the brainchild of Fabienne Lupo, the former president and CEO of the Fondation de la Haute Horlogerie, who for 22 years spearheaded the growth and expansion of the pre-eminent industry event, Watches and Wonders (previously SIHH).
For its inaugural edition, ReLuxury saw some 4,000 visitors over the four-day event. A fair dedicated to pre-owned luxury — its flag firmly planted in Geneva, and during such a key time for the industry — underscores the growing importance of the pre-owned market.
Figures have been telling this story for quite for some time, even if brands, and watch media (other than WATCHPRO), haven’t quite embraced the market.
According to a report last year by The Business of Fashion (BoF) and consultants McKinsey, the pre-owned watch market is forecast to post sales of $29 billion-$32 billion by 2025, up from $18 billion in 2019.
That would make it more than half the size of the primary market, and faster growing than the market for new premium to ultra-luxury watches, which is set to expand by just 1-3% annually.
A more recent study suggested the pre-owned market will overtake new watch sales by the middle of the next decade.
Watch companies still seem to be figuring out how to address this elephant in the room. Indeed, only three brands were present at ReLuxury.
Richard Mille has, since 2015 (eons in the certified pre-owned world) opened dedicated retail outlets selling authorised pre-owned pieces, with locations in Japan, London and Los Angeles. Geneva is set to open soon.
Chronoswiss and Zenith, were also present with both selling certified vintage pieces, the latter through its Icons line.
During the ReLuxury event, WATCHPRO heard that representatives from various brands were among the visitors, such as Audemars Piguet, no doubt sussing out how best to enter the pre-owned space.
Elsewhere, the long-anticipated announcement of Rolex’s certified pre-owned programme, which offers authenticated Rolexes sold with a two-year warranty, is sure to change the game significantly — and get other brands to up their own too, and pronto.
Patrik Hoffmann, executive vice president of WatchBox Europe, a ReLuxury partner, shared some views into why brands need to get on board.
A 30-year veteran of the industry — 20 of which were spent at Ulysse Nardin, culminating in him becoming CEO before he retired in 2018 — Mr Hoffmann said that the concept of watch brands simply “producing a nice product and selling it” is over.
He takes cues from the automobile industry. “The car industry understood three, four decades ago that the value of the secondary market was high. It was an underpinning value of the brands — it was not the enemy. It was something that they embraced. The watch industry has to learn this embracement,” said Mr Hoffmann.
The market has evolved from the grey market (“a cancer” as Mr Hoffmann calls it) to pre-owned, “which works because there’s transparency, communication and education… At the end of the day, we say primary and secondary. I do not think one can live one without the other.” At ReLuxury, WatchBox was notably hosting a selling retrospective of 100 important, historical pieces by De Bethune and FP Journe, with a series of panels and educational talks to round out the experience.
According to the BoF-McKinsey report, digitisation has been the main driver of growth in the sector: 30% of pre-owned premium and ultra-luxury watches are now sold online, compared with 5% of new pieces.
Unsurprisingly, ReLuxury’s roster of exhibitors was heavy on digital players — from online marketplaces to authentication services, with eBay notably the event’s founding partner.
The 27-year-old online marketplace, which posted $90 billion of sales last year, is increasingly a power player in pre-loved luxury — currently, some 1.5 million watches and handbags are listed on its site.
In 2021, eight watches were purchased on eBay in the US every minute, with the five top selling brands Hamilton, Omega, Seiko, TAG Heuer and Tissot.
In 2022, the most expensive watch sold on eBay globally was a 37mm Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Selfwinding “50th Anniversary” with an ice blue dial, for $135,000.
eBay’s market share is only expected to grow, helped along by its Authenticity Guarantee service where any watch sold on its site over £1,500 or $2,000 is physically inspected and verified by independent authenticators, with buyers issued a certification card embedded with near-field communication technology linked to eBay’s guarantee.
Any watches that buyers return are sent back to eBay’s authentication centre, and undergo the same checks before being returned to sellers.
Tirath Kamdar, eBay’s global general manager of luxury, said that partnering with ReLuxury is about catering to the next generation who are worried about waste and the environment of course, but “who are coming into the buying ecosystem of the future of luxury. The older generations are going to start ageing out,” said Mr Kamdar.
“The world needs to start thinking about Gen Z — they actually care about the circular economy and buying things that are sustainable commerce as part of their world,” he said. ReLuxury, he added, was a “great innovative leap” in creating the future of what a fair solely dedicated to the sector can look like.
For Fabienne Lupo, she said she is merely addressing a demand from clients, initially in the heart of watchmaking in Geneva, but with ambitions to expand ReLuxury to cities around the world — not unlike Watches and Wonders today.
Her aim is to address this fixation, mainly driven by brands, with “always new product, new collections and craziness about consumption,” she said. ReLuxury is for the public and the end client, to spread education and transparency as much as confidence.
“It’s important to reassure the consumer that there are great luxury goods to buy in the secondary market. Luxury is all about quality, durability, timelessness…. Today you cannot avoid addressing the subject of the circular economy. It’s compulsory.”
And in Ms Lupo’s capable hands, we can only expect ReLuxury to continue redefining and reshaping the pre-owned space.
