Rotary Watches is emerging from a challenging two years with a streamlined product line up of around 200 SKUs that favour fewer bestsellers over what the company admits used to be more of a scatter gun approach.
Peter McKenna, chief executive of Rotary, says the business is this year finishing the transition of the portfolio to the most popular styles within coherent families including Windsor, Kensington, Oxford and Ultraslim.
The turnaround, under Chinese owner CWJ, also puts the quality and reliability of Rotary’s watches at the centre of its plan. Its skeletonised movements will now always be made in Japan after Chinese versions generated too many returns.
“The key focus is on raising quality at our price points,” Mr McKenna tells WatchPro. “Consumers are much more savvy today, and we want people to be blown away when they open a Rotary watch box,” he adds.
Rotary has around 2000 doors in the UK, and is sharpening its focus on their needs. “We need to support all our partners, especially high street jewellers. Retailers do not want models that become obsolete too quickly,” says Mr McKenna.
Rotary has also been increasing the level of training and visual merchandising support it offers to retail partners and promised to increase spending on its UK marketing ahead of Christmas.
