It was over before it even started.
The ‘Snoopy’ MoonSwatch vanished from shelves today, four hours before stores officially opened.
Just 20 pieces were allocated at Mall of the Emirates, one of Dubai’s largest luxury malls and the city’s only retailer of the Mission to MoonPhase Snoopy MoonSwatch that launched today.
The MOE branch is meant to open at 10 am, but all 20 pieces were gone by 6:20 am, employees and customers told WatchPro.
The store was surrounded by security in hi-vis jackets and was opened early due to “security concerns,” an employee said. At its busiest, 200 people were huddled outside the small storefront, security personnel told WatchPro.
Security concerns may be warranted. The below video shows WatchPro trapped inside the Swatch’s MOE store in 2022 when the first Omega x Swatch pieces launched. Police had to escort WatchPro’s Josh Corder out of the store.
Restocking dates unclear
“We don’t know when they [the Mission to Moonphase pieces] will restock, it will happen once a month,” a Swatch employee at the desk told WatchPro. To make matters worse, on the fabled day of that restock, Swatch will again open early, the same employee told us, making obtaining the Snoopy Bioceramic nearly impossible if that is the case.
Those lucky 20 could well be people with close ties to Dubai’s inner circle who never stepped foot inside the store.
As a consolation, the Dubai Swatch store had every other Omega and Blancpain Swatch in stock (excluding Moonshine), which just a few months ago had people queuing up in the cold outdoors across the world.
By 7:45 am, the store had closed and everybody had left.
“People were fighting,” customer Shaun told WatchPro, who had been there since 6 am. “People were getting really mad.” He shared the video below with WatchPro, showing a customer shouting at security.
There will surely be similar dogfights across the globe today.
I’m staying in a hotel next to the Mall of the Emirates and thought I’d stroll over at 10am until I read this. Such a shame.
Only 20 in Glasgow too frustrating. Queuing 3 hours before opening not early enough.
Didn’t even start selling til 10 an hour late on a freezing day.
Do you have a personal vendetta against SWATCH? Surely opening early – given the queue was larger than the amount of watches they have in stock – helps remove the potential H&S concern of waiting until they opened? Spurious gossip about where watches were sold without any evidence feels like playground behaviour unbefitting of a major magazine.
Really? Come on Swatch…. They really need to stop this sshitt!
Wait a year and you’ll get one for less than a hundred quid. They made of castor oil for god’s sakes.
Charlie Brown here. Fight each other to decide who gets to give me there money first. You humans haven’t really evolved that much in the last million years lol
The Swatch Group is playing a dangerous game in the name of marketing. The Swatch executives were all smiles having customers line up all night everywhere [even in the cold] to buy a MoonSwatch when they were first launched. Now that customers are voicing their anger at being abused, Swatch should probably hand out vouchers for the Snoopy edition to customers so customers aren’t wasting their time to stay in line only to leave empty handed.