WatchBox, the eCommerce web site finest identified for being the main world platform for pre-loved luxurious watches, has introduced that it’s forming a partnership with high-end Swiss retailer Les Ambassadeurs, increasing on the corporate’s present technique to maneuver their providers from an completely digital realm into the bodily world. This settlement follows the launch of WatchBox’s licensed supplier community in the US in partnership with California-based Hing Wa Lee Jewelers in December 2018.
The system permits potential prospects to carry their watches right into a Les Ambassadeurs retailer for a worth analysis. The workers within the retailer use WatchBox’s analysis device and suggest a trade-in worth to the client. The client can use this credit score observe in opposition to a brand new buy; the watch is then despatched to WatchBox, who will promote it via separate channels. This not solely saves the purchasers time (and supplies them with face-to-face reassurance) but in addition provides each retail fashions a few priceless advantages.
It is a vital step for the following section of on-line/brick-and-mortar enterprise relations. For a few years, the web market has been accelerating by leaps and bounds (Monetary consultancy Kepler Cheuvreux estimates the present world marketplace for pre-owned watches, alone, to be price upward of $15 billion yearly). It has, particularly within the entry-level luxurious phase (round $1000-$5,000), been tearing chunks out of the extra conventional mannequin.
Whereas very high-end purchases stay the protect of bodily retailers, it’s almost not possible to envisage a long-term future for brick-and-mortar retailers based mostly solely on this stage of commerce. It’s absolutely possible very small variety of “concierge” shops may maintain themselves, feeding from these six-figure scraps as they must, however for a widespread community of stockists to exist in such a world appears unconscionable. Actually, WatchBox itself already owns and operates a number of such personal showrooms and shopping for places of work in Philadelphia, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and South Africa.
This partnership with Les Ambassadeurs will see WatchBox set up a bodily presence in Zurich, Geneva, Lucerne, and Lugano. Moreover, WatchBox’s product vary may even be provided on the Les Ambassadeurs web site, creating a completely built-in service platform.
WatchBox International President and Chief Working Officer, Amanda Ellison, says, “The imaginative and prescient for WatchBox is to create a very linked world market, instituting a typical of excellence for each product and repair inside the pre-owned class. By bringing WatchBox to a world stage, we will supply a broader stock to a larger community of shoppers, whereas hiring and partnering with probably the most gifted merchants and retailers within the trade, and reaching economies of scale. We’re delighted to forge forward with Les Ambassadeurs as a robust, forward-thinking accomplice.”
The transfer by WatchBox is intelligent (and well timed) as a result of it has instigated a mutually useful transition interval. Les Ambassadeurs advantages from getting prospects via the door and by promoting their watches. After all, there might be an settlement in place for WatchBox to take a small proportion of each sale for his or her involvement with this scheme, however the retailer is much extra probably to have the ability to promote their watches at full retail somewhat than having to supply a reduction because of the trade-in deal, thus negating any potential price.
This private expertise provides the client a sense of safety and the added luxurious expertise of being within the retailer. In the meantime, WatchBox’s operations are given a reputational increase by their affiliation with a real-world retailer (there’s nothing untoward about WatchBox’s practices, to start with, however many would-be shoppers of high-value merchandise are reticent about coping with a purely digital enterprise).
Doubling down on the feedback of the WatchBox CEO, Joachim Ziegler, CEO of Les Ambassadeurs, stated, “It was crucial for us to not simply be a primary mover in Switzerland within the pre-owned market, however to additionally supply an unparalleled service for our shoppers. They may be capable of purchase, promote, and commerce pre-owned watches in our boutiques, in addition to on-line, all backed by a 15-month guarantee and the trusted experience of two trade leaders.”
The knock-on impact of a digital/bodily retailer collaboration could possibly be enormous for the trade. On the very least, whether or not this explicit mannequin takes off or not, it has additional damaged down boundaries between the 2 sides and reignited the dialogue of how inventive and entrepreneurial leaders in each retail segments would possibly higher work collectively going ahead. Be taught extra at thewatchbox.com.
