Smiling American wrist watch retailers disembark a dinner cruise organized for necessary visitors of Seiko in Manhattan on a heat June evening. Sturdy success has marked the current efforts of the normal Japanese watch maker on American shores – specifically in regard to a collection of its higher-end timepiece traces that embody the luxury-positioned Grand Seiko manufacturers the Presage and Prospex collections throughout the Seiko model. Seiko is not any stranger to American shopper reputation however what accounts for the corporate’s skill to so shortly transfer upmarket each in its precise common product high quality in addition to in its common worth factors?
I’m responsible of being among the many Seiko customers who felt that the “Seiko I knew” was getting away from me over the previous few years because the model technique quietly began to shift. For some time my relationship with Seiko as a shopper received confused – I didn’t really feel that I knew what the model needed to be for customers like me who received began on fundamental Seiko timepieces to kickstart being a watch collector. Seiko’s technique gave the impression to be a shifting goal and I used to be making an attempt to observe a course whose path I didn’t all the time perceive. That confusion is coming to an finish as I lastly consider to grasp what Seiko and its group of manufacturers and divisions try to do. In brief, it’s a good factor for individuals who loves watches.
Grand Seiko’s sharp upmarket rise and world presence has been essentially the most radical funding at Seiko lately. Preliminary hesitation about Japan’s most prestigious timepieces doing nicely on the worldwide market has been washed away by proof of unimaginable shopper buy-out in markets akin to america and in any other case. Grand Seiko has appeared to constantly carry out nicely in any market I question watch gross sales folks the place the model is bought. Retailers who don’t carry Grand Seiko eagerly wish to carry the model – with many telling me they’d be pleased to drop different manufacturers so as obtain the privilege. You merely don’t hear tales like that about too many different manufacturers nowadays. In a depressed financial system for luxurious watches, Seiko is attending to develop. That’s superb and excellent news for these questioning what the subsequent 5-10 years within the luxurious watch business would possibly appear to be.
Core to Seiko’s technique appears to be tapping into current niches they consider will likely be extra evergreen. They’re making an attempt to take agency price-point positions within the luxurious and way of life watch market – that replaces their outdated mainstay which is a mass shopper product bought virtually strictly for its utilitarian worth. I’ve but to interview Seiko officers about this, however I feel there’s a deeper story about Seiko as an organization evolving from an organization producing shopper instruments (the wrist watch of yesterday), to now reaching the fans and collectors whose enthusiastic response should be encouraging.
Let me be clear that Seiko and its group of firms will proceed to be “manufacturing-minded” at first. With that stated, Seiko advantages from a really worldwide perspective to working the corporate in numerous markets. Not like many European watch manufacturers that workers their subsidiary workplaces with folks from headquarters (principally French and Swiss nationals), Seiko and its Japanese model colleagues in america primarily workers their US workplaces with individuals who perceive the American market, ie Individuals. Individuals and in addition different nationalities whom Seiko has cherry-picked from different elements of the watch business to run their firm in American right now. The technique appears to be working in some ways in addition to it did within the 1980s and 1990s.
I wasn’t within the watch business within the 1980s however think about that watch retailer enthusiasm for Seiko then was thematically just like the way it sounds from Seiko’s prime retailers right now – solely differing on the subjects they have been enthusiastic about. You see Seiko is definitely taking a plan from their very own playbook however making use of it in another way than was accomplished within the 1970s and 1980s. A giant a part of the Japanese watch worth proposition was “we are able to do it in addition to the Europeans however for much less cash.” In a cost-conscious market right now – simply because it was within the 1980s for a lot of customers – Seiko is presenting itself as the posh watch model that provides what you demand in a luxurious timepiece however at costs beneath what most of the established European provide. What modifies the story right now is that Seiko is definitely doing a greater job of making a way of demand for its merchandise than most of the European manufacturers it has historically noticed are doing. To think about the implications of this truth is sort of surprising for an organization like Seiko. Not is it simply producing a product in a market the place there may be established demand (for timepieces), in right now’s work of 2019 and shifting ahead, Seiko needs to be one of many most important gamers in creating demand for timepieces to start with.
Like many good merchandise, Seiko’s reputation with watch retailers right now actually started with customers. Galvanized by a powerful fanatic and collector base, the Seiko of right now is banking on the truth that it could actually preserve an excellent relationship with the people who find themselves involved in getting an ideal watch, and never simply any time-teller to placed on their wrist. To assist clarify this level merely look to the truth that Seiko is shedding a lot of their lower-end watch manufacturing, together with the shops that promote them. Seiko has eliminated over 1,000 factors of sale in america alone. It desires to maneuver away from the current previous the place Seiko (and different Japanese watches) have been routinely hawked on the promise of reductions at huge division retailer retailers. Seiko will as a substitute give attention to a better worth level, however can even embody rather more worth and energy in its common watch than the Seiko timepieces owned by many current clients. The place is that this worth? It comes within the type of the standard of circumstances, the standard of case sprucing, the crystal materials, the motion high quality, the dial and fingers high quality, and naturally the bracelet high quality. Look over most of the newest Seiko timepieces with a educated eye and also you’ll see a really actual trickle-down of the corporate’s most unique ending methods and applied sciences flowing down into what we as soon as thought of rather more pedestrian merchandise.
Because the Grand Seiko model’s common worth level strikes up, Seiko as a model is there to fill in the place Grand Seiko as soon as existed. From a pure numerical standpoint, that is actually Seiko making a strategic resolution to “personal” the class in a number of particular worth factors – specifically these worth factors typically uncared for by the Swiss. Grand Seiko was as soon as Seiko’s technique right here, however Grand Seiko has since moved on to compete extra straight with the Swiss on a head-on foundation by shifting up its common worth level. Members of the Seiko Presage (extra formal and dressy) and Seiko Prospex (sporty and informal) now inhabit the underneath $three,000-Four,000 worth factors that after had a good variety of Grand Seiko choices.
Which means your common Prospex and Presage watch right now is a superior product than your common Prospex and Presage watch of yesterday. A bigger vary of higher mechanical (and Spring Drive) actions can be found, as are upgrades throughout the road within the new watches Seiko has been releasing. Proper now Seiko simply has a number of the strongest product worth propositions within the $500 – $2,000 worth level and its retailers and followers are keenly conscious of it.
As a watch knowledgeable what actually impresses me is the constantly excessive degree of genuine esteem Seiko and Grand Seiko sellers have for the Japanese model. Retailers are excited each concerning the product and concerning the service from the model. That is in marked distinction from a way of justified mistrust and frustration they really feel when coping with most of the conventional European manufacturers. If something, Seiko is ready to financial institution on the truth that good watch retailers in america have an more and more fractured relationship with an excellent variety of the normal European luxurious watch manufacturers, leaving the market open for a powerful Seiko to develop and succeed.
The emboldened Seiko of right now is keenly conscious of the fragility of the worldwide luxurious watch market and but there may be confidence within the enduring worth of what Seiko and its colleagues have been making for years. There may be greater than sufficient historical past in Japanese watchmaking to know that the normal watch (in its many types) has weathered quite a lot of storms over the course of its historical past. What tends to stay after such storms are essentially the most strongly positioned manufacturers that provide essentially the most enduring worth propositions to customers. The place Seiko is discovering new elements of itself are within the worlds of promoting. By listening fastidiously to its robust administration staff in america (which is the worldwide chief in creating wrist watch demand ), Seiko can be set to turn into a extremely efficient advertising machine backed up by the standard of their merchandise.
As a wrist watch lover who has all the time had a tender spot for Seiko, the Japanese watch maker now has a agency grip on my consideration as soon as once more. Seiko will proceed to solidify its place within the watch business over the subsequent few years because the model to beat in sure crucial worth factors. These $500 – $three,000 (primarily) worth factors are the place I see monumental shopper curiosity and I feel that Seiko is smart to once more search management on this enviornment. Their outcomes already converse for themselves.
What can different firms study from Seiko? For one factor, Seiko has faithfully answered the query of “what are we good at and who’s involved in shopping for it?” Second, Seiko has answered the query of “the place can we wish to put our effort and the way will we construct our base?” By asking and answering these questions we discover Seiko in a centered and seemingly assured place. All that they should preserve doing is asking themselves what branding relationship they need the North American shopper to have with Seiko, after which to construct methods of additional rising that relationship. See extra on the Seiko USA web site right here.
