Sensible outlook.Originally Posted by Snowdon
Although personally I really hope Pragnell’s lose it.
Rolex wanting to capture all the value chain. The 40%-50% margin on Rolex SS sports the ADs get is money Rolex can now trouser.
Of course the other brands carried by Bucherer like VC, Breguet and JLC may be wondering if their watches will soon be found only on the dusty lower shelves in Bucherer's shops.
Last edited by J J Carter; 25th August 2023 at 20:07.
Haha me too and I’ve never even set foot in their store.
Bunch of package deal cowboys.
I will never forget them saying to me when knowing my wife was pregnant ‘so surely you need to buy her a push gift’.
Come.to think of it, I think the only business that would survive if they lost their main watch brand(s) is Boodles.
They used to sell Rolex at one point and then it went to Patek only. But I think their jewellery holds its own. Not sure Pragnell jewellery is even a thing.
Maybe Charlie Pragnell will look for a buyer of his business before Rolex or Patek pull their agencies. Does Leicester really need a Patek and Rolex agency?
Are you suggesting WoS is such an entity or just a random thought?
What’s “wrong” with Leicester and its retail catchment please?
Pragnell jewellery is definitely a thing for their 3 shops…..what else would they bundle with PP and Rolex?
Surely! Wow, no class.
The news reports state that Rolex sales make up half of WoS revenue (hence the impact on share price) so yes they are such an entity
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I'm not sure Leicester needs its own PP and Rolex agency. Nice as the Pragnell showroom is, it's not really in keeping with the surrounding shops which then cheapens the brands it sells IMO.
Bit like having an AP house in Kingston town centre. Wouldn't really work.
I remember buying a Rolex from the long gone Pykes in Birkenhead. There was a netto supermarket about ten metres away. Needless to say, they were struggling and when Rolex pulled their agency, the chain closed.
I remember going to Pykes Birkenhead as a nipper for family birthday Christmas presents, thanks for the memory :)
Also to add, they held a significant deposit for a watch I 'ordered' for nearly 18 months. Then told me they could not supply it. Absolute wasters.
The stories I’ve heard I wouldn’t buy a Mars bar from them. Their issue resolution is always full of lies. Have a friend who had to threaten to go legal and get his card issuer involved to get a refund.
There's a Rolex AD, 2 Omega ADs, a GS AD, a Breitling Boutique and a Tag Boutique already in Kingston Town Centre with a Cartier Boutique coming soon. AP is a notch above these but I'm confused as to how Kingston would be isolated in your statement.
Maybe meant Hull?
An AP House or even an AP AD in Kingston would be laughable. Worse than a Rolex on the same street as a Farm Foods or Aldi.
AP are fans of shooting themselves in the foot recently including accidentally reducing the price of some watches during the annual price rise and a new limited edition which is an exact copy of what an aftermarket dealer already made in 2021 but opening a store in Kingston would be too much even for them.
If nothing else, I've learned the correct pronunciation of Bucherer this week!
They let you buy one so they can't be that discerning
I see what you did there…..
Which AP’s (the “accidental” price reductions and the Limited Edition you referenced?) are you referring to please?
Two, so they messed up twice. Im sure when the new CEO has her feet under the table oiks like me will be frozen out.
Ti ROO 43 went up to 36.6 and is now 36.3 after a £300 reduction during the Q1 2023 price rise.
Imagine buying one for the higher RRP !!!
I don’t see that. Rolex are aspirational and as has been seen in the past couple of years, the harder they are to get, the more desirable they become.
Roll forward a few years and it’s entirely possible that go buy one, you put your name down and await a call, at which point you make an appointment to visit one of their boutiques (possibly only the four in London). On arrival, you’re treated like royalty, champagne, canopies etc and leave an hour or so later with your shiny new watch.
The demand will be as crazy as it is today; if you want to buy online then buy a lesser watch!
That’s the way I see Rolex going and WOS no longer selling the brand. If that reduces the grey market then it will only confirm what everyone thinks about watches going out if the back door.
A fool and his money!
That probably wasn’t accidental. The happened to my ROO 43 about 18 months ago when it’s price went down by £100 during a price increase for the brand it and was due to current FX changes and it’ll be the same for the Ti ROO 43 I would expect.
Worth it in the end!
I heard earlier Rolex and Tudor are going up another 5% in September apparently!
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I used to like Pragnells of Mayfair and would often call in……
But when the lovely manager Eva left it went downhill rapidly imho
The next time I visited some sales bloke did my head in talking at me for half an hour and then
I left.
Pragnell’s have some very rich customers and certainly ain’t interested in a hillbilly like me on the waiting list
for a Submariner.
I imagine in the current climate things are different for them, and I wouldn’t like to be a Rolex retailer these days
with no control over future supply.
From what I was told not so long ago, they have no real control over what they are allocated by Rolex anyway.
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Wos shares plummet in fear that rolex will now be giving away watches. Basically. Science fiction.
Thing is we can already buy almost every Rolex model brand new from online retailers anyway, just not official Authorised ones. None of that has made the Rolex brand any less desirable. I don’t feel a Rolex purchased from Blowers online is any less desirable than a new one from Hugh Rice in Hull.
Done well the online retail experience can be as good as a high street purchase. Younger generations often prefer it, and for some it’s all they’ve known. Even us watch enthusiasts can sometimes feel intimidated or unwelcome in high street retailers and ultimately online is inevitable.
What happened to the previous rolex site at Ernest Jones Kingston?
Nice as Kingston is, it's not Rolex AD material and will lose the AD at some point IMO. Either that or the whole area goes up a few notches in poshness which is not happening IMO.
There's a Poundland a few mins walk away
According to the FT- WOS shares dropped because the fear is Rolex will simply supply more watches to their own outlets and cut supply to WOS….why wouldn’t they?
You seem to have a negative view on a number of locations mentioned in this thread so im moderately interested to know where you reside please?
It is true that Kingston has a refreshingly Beckenhamesque air. I like Beckenham, but I'd be surprised at its having an AD for lawnmowers, let alone an AP boutique
Nowhere posh at all. But I'd rather not say. I'm merely pointing out that there is a mismatch between the aura these brands are trying to portray and some of the locations of their points of sale.
I'm now embourgeoised from working class to maybe middle class by virtue of my job. Big assumption: GPs are middle class?
If not, I'm still working class
There's also a McDonalds next to Harrods you know? Just saying!
I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said from a buyer’s perspective, I’m looking st it from the perspective of Rolex. If they stay offline and insist on a visit to a boutique to buy your Rolex, it adds an air of exclusivity to the purchase.
There’s also the possibility (probability) that once supply is reduced to the AD network, the availability of brand new Rolex watches from grey dealers will also reduce substantially.
I really don’t see it being in their interests to have an online sales presence, I just don’t see how it would benefit them, but I could well be proved wrong.
This may well have changed in the last couple of years but previously you couldn’t buy a Rolex and have it posted to you, you had to pick it up in person, but you could buy a Patek and get that posted.
NB/ that was according to two separate AD groups (one had 4 stores, the other had 1 store) that both sold Rolex and Patek. I know as I tried to get a Rolex posted back around lockdown time and they couldn’t. They did post me a Tudor though.
However Rolex sell it wont matter. They will shift the same units per year the point of sale is irrelevant.
People will always tire of them, run out of money, want to make a few quid so they will always be at grey dealers too for under and over RRP.
All Rolex gain is less admin and a streamlined supply chain. Only customers that shit out are those who have benefited greatly from sucking independant ADs off for watches (Read buying any old PM shit to get something half decent / building a relationship)
RIAC
Sorry to contradict but I was allocated a Pepsi during lockdown and I paid online and it was posted to my home address
This was goldsmiths in Leicester.
Maybe different rules from AD’s. Not Rolex rules
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First time I ever went into Harrods was to get the green Tudor. What an awful run down shop it is.
Think it’s living off the name. Can’t be living off the experience surely.
My only guess is Al-Fayad ran a different ship.
Fair enough must have just been the two AD’s I dealt with.
When I went in to Harrods to get the green Tudor the two members of staff must have been in a competition to see who could look the most disinterested! Even when I said I was here to pick up the watch they looked at me like it was the first time anyone had ever asked them a question.
I had to console myself with some amazing chocolates from the food hall :-)
I love Harrods. Don't go often but always make a trip around Christmas (mainly to browse but they do have a bunch of relatively affordable stuff in the Christmas section). It's a very quirky store.
Yes, I meant supply to the whole AD network reduced, however large that network may be, and a larger proportion of all of their watches being sold through their own boutiques.
Last edited by Dave+63; 29th August 2023 at 07:34.
EJ lost the Rolex franchise across the whole UK about 10 years ago.
BTW Cartier are also opening a boutique in Kingston and Kingston has a Fenwick department store. Anywhere in any major urban area will have shops aimed at different spectrums of society TBH unless it is an uber posh area like New Bond Street (which BTW also has a Fenwick department store). The fact of the matter is Rolex isn't yet the uber luxury brand it maybe wants to position itself as, certainly it's no AP, PP, VC etc and I'm doubtful that the wealthy are its core target demographic - I think it is targeting the aspirational middle class which is borne out in the sheer volume of watches it produces each year. It is to watches what Louis Vuitton is to handbags - good quality and with prestige but in a tier below the likes of Chanel and Hermes who both produce their products in far more restricted quantities.
You can buy APs in Selfridges which is on Oxford Street and I'd say the average store in Kingston's Bentall Centre is aimed at a more affluent segment of the market than the average store on Oxford Street. Of course Selfridges itself is a store aimed at the luxury end of the market but it is located less than 100m away from American Candy stores and shops selling cheap tat to tourists, and that's without mentioning the Primark that's pretty much bang across the road.
I am surprised at the lack of ADs in Richmond which is just down the road and probably a more affluent area than Kingston but I think Kingston has positioned itself as a shopping hub for those folk in Surrey etc who don't want to go all the way into Central London but want more choice than is available in Guildford etc.
BTW nowt wrong with Poundland!
Last edited by ryanb741; 29th August 2023 at 02:36.
My point about Ernest Jones was that the shop is boarded up now, is it not? At least it was when I last went past
Good points re Selfridges although they are not an AP AD. But agreed, Oxford Street is a proper disaster zone. It's embarrassing really. Look at the corner plot that WoS used to occupy. It's now a shop selling tourist tat.
Fenwick Bond Street is closing soon btw.
My point in all of this is that Rolex are going out their way to clean up their image. They have done that pretty successfully thus far and keeping points of sale in tatty areas is not in keeping with their direction of travel IMO
There was an article in the WSJ this weekend about how Oxford Road is on a slide and the candy shops are a big part of the problem.
I've done OK out of buying at bottom... I could em.. buy a Rolex with the money 🤡
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