Reply With QuoteThat's lunchtimes sorted then :o)
Watches of Switzerland’s flagship store on London’s Regents Street will open in June with the retailer describing the concept as ‘one door, three stores’.
The 17,000sq ft store will be split over three floors, each with its own distinct environment for specific groups of customers.
The store will offer 6,000 watch models, including a vintage collection curated by the company’s pre-owned expert Owen Sheridan, for sale and represents a £15million investment on the part of Watches of Switzerland. It will also feature an in-house Service Lounge for servicing and repairs.
The lower ground floor will be known as The Calibre Room and geared towards an ‘efficient shopping experience’ for international visitors with a wide range of distinct brands on offer and will include a single in-store Montblanc boutique.
The Ground Floor is aimed at ‘aspirational’ customers with a suite of six brand boutiques for Rolex, IWC, Panerai, TAG Heuer, Cartier and Vacheron Constantin with the First Floor reserved for ‘connoisseur and enthusiast’ clients with brand boutiques for Patek Philippe, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Piaget, Chopard and A. Lange and Söhne as well as a VIP lounge.
The flagship store will also see Watches of Switzerland sell watches from Roger Dubuis, Nomos, Girard-Perregaux, H Moser & Cie and Parmigiani for the first time as well as a full lifestyle concierge service offered to customers.
Watches of Switzerland is also keen to use the store’s flexible space as a destination for watch industry parties, product launches and promotional events.
Damian Otwinowski was appointed showroom director of the flagship Regents Street store in September and has interviewed 600 people since October to narrow down his final team selection.
He told WatchPro that in his new role he ‘talks two languages, English and digital’ referring to the heavy presence of digital merchandising that will greet visitors to the store. An interactive TimeWheel, presented in English, French, Arabic, Mandarin and Russian will educate customers on the horological happenings during Watches of Switzerland’s 90 year. A 12-foot touchscreen video wall and the latest Translook Vitrine, transparent video displays, will also be employed.
Brian Duffy, Watches of Switzerland chief executive officer, also mentioned the company would seek to better serve east London with ‘one or two’ store openings planned and the potential was there for an international location.
Article from WatchPro magazine online.
Oh to be a Londoner…….or within relatively close proximity!
Last edited by PJ S; 16th April 2014 at 23:53.
That's lunchtimes sorted then :o)
Make sure you take your camera, so you can give us a weekly SOTC update!Originally Posted by dougair
Very odd that Vacheron Constantin is not on the first floor with PP, JLC, Piaget and A. Lange & Sohne.
This could be very dangerous - that site is a 2 minute walk from my office...
1st floor sounds exciting!
Hopefully this store includes some decent bloomin staff. Most of the times I've been into Oxford St. or Bond St. they've had little to no knowledge of the watches I've asked to see, and have shown no enthusiasm for finding out either.
Still, at least it's a new place to get my watch porn fix.
My thoughts exactly.... 'Aspirational?' VC? It's downright impertinent!
The mention of more in East London is intriguing, but I suppose they mean the City by that?
In terms of pricing alone, they should probably swap JLC and VC!
Sounds like Chopard nicked their spot....I think they should appeal!!
Opening night could be ideal oppo for a London GTG?
I thought that...
A GTG there would be mutually beneficial for both WoS and the TZ-UK membership alike, but I'm doubtful as to whether they'd allow this to happen on opening night; nice idea though.
What we need is a member who has already suitably ingratiated themselves with Mr. Otwinowski to make the arrangements...
Sounds amazing, worth a trip down to London just to see the place. I too thought VC's 'relegation' sounded odd.
Will be interesting place to visit. Had many purchases with them over the years and always very helpful, if you know what you want.
In light of some of the comments, I can't help but wonder if the usage of the word "boutiques" is indicative of the respective brands having been offered their location in return for an annual rent or lump sum contribution towards the £15M it's claiming to be costing.
As Tony suggests, this could be a serious horological landmark, of which the various brands discussed definitely wanted to be a part of from the outset.
Perhaps VC wanted their ground floor location – we don't know the floorplan, so it could be bigger than they'd have had upstairs, or it's situated in an area of high traffic (hear the stairway which the big spenders will be heading for and therefore past VC).
Not that I know for sure, but I suspect the likes of Boots and Debenhams employ something like that for their concessions in-store, so WoS copying that model to some degree makes perfect sense.
Last edited by PJ S; 16th April 2014 at 23:48.
Absolutely fair point.
I guess I was just surprised not to see VC bracketed with PP, etc.
Definitely looking forward to having a browse around :)
And plenty of signage in dual English/Chinese, I would expect. ;-)
It will be interesting to see just how "an ‘efficient shopping experience’ for international visitors" is realised.
Ah, I rather thought that many of these brands would be available in the 'efficient shopping experience' room. Perhaps they will be.
Mmm....
A "lifestyle concierge".
Just what I was thinking, too.
I rather fancy that it will involve the wealthy Chinese shoppers who arrived at the store well after you did being attended to first by the snooty [low paid] salesperson who'd been doing their utmost to ignore you, naturally they'll be falling over themselves with the Chip & PIN machine in one hand and a VAT refund form in the other!
Hehe
The whole place sounds horrific.
"efficient shopping experience for international visitors"
I imagine an inert, sterile, soullesss retail operation full of beady-eyed sales assistants competing with one another to relieve anyone who walks through the door of as much money as possible in as short a time as possible to become that months `WOS salesperson of the month`.
Floor two is probably not much better, expect smarmy suits and omnipresent bullshit.
On three i see snobby pretentious `horological advisors`who know less about the things they sell that most of you lot.
Am i wrong?
Sounds about right to me.
I also wonder if you have to pre qualify to gain access to the upper levels. Wouldn't want the unwashed masses cluttering the place!
Haha, I laughed at that as well. That couldn't sound more pompous and ridiculous.A "lifestyle concierge".
Don't they have a drive through ?
I think it sounds excellent. Finally, I won't have to head over to WUS anymore to find answers to questions such as 'can my ROO handle the steam when I strain the pasta?'
Very good.
It`d be the same buying experience, wouldn`t it?
Should the colour of my manbag match my watch strap? What hairstyle should I get with my new Hublot?
Yea, would have thought VC would be on the 1st floor.
Would be awesome to have a look round but I think I'd like to buy my watch in a smaller shop. Not a fan of these massive stores; Kind of feels less personal.
Well that's obvious, surely everyone knows the answer to that one
Nope :)
It's aimed at foreigners, who will enjoy fawning, discounts and being addressed in the third person in their native tongue. I wonder if they will have passport checks on the door?
...but what do I know; I don't even like watches!
I rather suspect it's what much of the target customer base would like.
Those who want a more conventional AD experience will be catered for by one of the other floors.
Middle-Eastern citizenship should probably qualify you automatically :)
...but what do I know; I don't even like watches!
Opened in the wrong country......should be in China
No! The whole point is that the Chinese come to the UK to by their watches because they're cheaper AND they get the VAT back, so for the top brands it can be as much 40% cheaper than it is to buy in China.
In fact the watch shops in China and the Far East in general are far grander and a much better experience than in UK.
Will be interesting to see how this store compares, I have always found the staff there very helpful and in fact have used it for a couple of trades in the past and had bracelets adjusted while we waited!
Yeah, but aren't the Chinese government cracking down on that. It may come as a surprise but not all Chinese declare the goods when returning back, so they don't even pay the local tax. Something I know the Chinese government are keen to tap into. I think there was a change in there law whilst this store went past the idea stage and was underway. Does anybody know why there are no Swatch group brands or Breitling? I would have thought they were bread and butter. It's a huge store, I am not so sure A L & S and VC produce enough watches to keep that store going with all of its overheads... 15million a year? Once the PP boutique is open I wonder in all honesty who is going to buy from this store, unless there is a discount to be had.... Or was it part of the deal that enabled Patek to purchase WOS next to its existing boutique. Also one final point I also find it strange that just before this fantastic new store it's MD Justin Stead steps down. I will definitely be popping in though, but like many have aleady stated I don't think I fit there demographic and I am not being bussed in!
VIP Lounge? Good grief.
Hopefully there's a DJ and bottles of champagne.
I don't know about the other Swatch brands but I assume Omega wants everyone buying from their big boutique further up the road where they can make the retail price instead of the wholesale (less the cost of running the place of course, but still...) They used to have Omega in Selfridges before the boutique arrived in Regent Street too - the staff woudn't be drawn on why they suddenly didn't have any.
What about Breitling? Do you think they are focusing on their own retail stores also. I just think there must be a reason they didn't go in, I can't imagine they were not asked.
Lubing up to become another SwatchCo Global Brand (tm), I suspect!
...but what do I know; I don't even like watches!
No AP? Leaving that to Marcus in New Bond St perhaps.
Breitling have their own boutique on Bond Street so I guess they would prefer customers to go there
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