Rolex doesn’t do ecommerce, and it does not allow its authorised dealers to sell its watches online either.
Increasingly though, because demand is outstripping supply many times over, Rolex retailers cannot sell in stores either.
Watches are kept in retailers’ safes, and customers are selected for them, often based on their purchasing history at that store. The more you have spent, the better chance you have of scoring a Pepsi GMT or Hulk Submariner.
This crippling lack of availability at Rolex stores is driving customers online to find the watches they crave, straight into the hands of secondary market specialists that have the watches available at prices set by the market.
If they buy once from one of these sites, they are likely to buy there for life, according to CHRONEXT CEO Phillip Man.
“The more that happens, the more you have consumers moving away from physical retail in a structural and irreversible way because they cannot even touch the products in the windows of authorised dealers [Rolex has exhibition only watches on display] and you certainly cannot buy them,” he tells WATCHPRO in an interview for our Special Report on the Secondary Market to be published in May.
Asked what he thinks about exhibition-only watches being put on display in retailers’ windows, Mr Man is scathing.
“What is the point? If you want to look at beautiful watches you can go to the Patek Philippe Museum. But this shortage is good for pre-owned because the secondary market is the only place consumers can go to for these watches,” he says.
Rolex (and Patek) have become nothing more than the bait in a bait-and-switch sales tactic for most of these ADs. Draw customers into stores by aggressively advertising a brand they know they can’t sell, then push sales of everything else because they have no stock.
Exhibition-only pieces are a different matter altogether. I learned last week that these pieces are on a rotation. If you have a specific piece you wish to view, the AD might not have it. You’ll have to check back periodically just to see if they have it. What is the point of an exhibition piece when the wait time for a piece could exceed 10 years? Will that piece even be available in 10 years, or will Rolex discontinue it?
Why is it, if anyone knows, that Rolex dealers don’t operate on a first come, first served basis?
Thanks for any thoughts,
W. Hudson
Well he kinda would say that wouldn’t he.. as an Online Dealer of used timepieces.
It’s all a scam, and it will come to an end. AD waitlist is a scam too. Why Rolex and other brand don’t make an online waiting list that is managed by Them ? AD are scammers and flippers to grey market friends. Consumer become under the mercy of his AD. And moat of AD have a money laundry scheam with the grey ( secondary ) market dealers.
Of course they do not operate on a first come first served basis. Rolex are a pain to deal with as an AD. They push you around any way they want and you are obliged to take it. The only advantage, as Rolex will make clear to them, is that there is money for them to make on other stuff when they have Rolex customers in the store wanting ‘hard to get pieces’. Why would they give their only advantage away for nothing?