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Thread: Finally got a white dial SMITHS EVEREST to complete my Smith collection :)

  1. #1

    Cool Finally got a white dial SMITHS EVEREST to complete my Smith collection :)

    failed to get one in the cart !
    Last edited by oca9i; 12th June 2022 at 14:17.

  2. #2
    Craftsman TF23's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by oca9i View Post
    failed to get one in the cart !
    As I understood it, they were not for sale today but another batch is due in the near future.

    I failed to buy a Gilt dial today though, despite finalising payment within 2 minutes of opening.

  3. #3
    Master Scrubnut's Avatar
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    The 25EXP is on sale 15/5

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    Craftsman TF23's Avatar
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    I think he's talking about the cream dial Everest, not the Everest Expedition. In any event, both were flagged up in the latest newsletter as being available in the near future.

  5. #5
    How long was the store open for ?


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  6. #6
    Grand Master markrlondon's Avatar
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    Less than 3 minutes.

  7. #7
    Master Scrubnut's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by markrlondon View Post
    Less than 3 minutes.
    it was all over at 2.01 Absolutely ridiculous. Either open or don’t bother

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Scrubnut View Post
    The 25EXP is on sale 15/5
    Thanks for your remarks :)
    oops... i have understood wrongly from Eddie last email notification :
    ___
    The store will be open on
    Sunday 24th April at 1400hrs [UK]

    The Smiths Everest Gilt Dial will be available along with other models ...Caribbean Orange Dial.

    This is the third batch of the Everest PRS-25 Gilt Dial that will be available with the White Dial and Expedition being available in the near future. ... Please be patient.

  9. #9
    Grand Master markrlondon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrubnut View Post
    Either open or don’t bother
    Well, they did open!

  10. #10
    Master Scrubnut's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by markrlondon View Post
    Well, they did open!
    True but you know what I mean. At least let people checkout in the minute they get !

  11. #11
    Grand Master markrlondon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scrubnut View Post
    True but you know what I mean. At least let people checkout in the minute they get !
    The problem is that the sales quota is met by people who check out faster than that. ;-)

    I tried to order two Jubilee bracelets this time but failed. Reason? I made an error when selecting the number of bracelets. The batch of Jubilees available for sale in this opening sold out by 14:01 (or earlier, not sure exactly).

    Actually the shop as a whole was open for longer than 1 minute. It was still possible to order lower-demand items up to just before/around 14:03, from what I could see. That was when the overall sales limit was reached.

    It's frustrating to lose out but if I hadn't made an error it is likely that I'd have been successful. Hopefully next time.
    Last edited by markrlondon; 24th April 2022 at 14:39.

  12. #12
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    I managed to order a PRS-48. Confirmed by email at 14:02.

  13. #13

    Cool

    Not an issue for me as they are not in any limited edition... happy to try again during next shop openning ...

    Still have time to go to the voting office now to elect the new president for another five years term...

    Nice sunday to all...

  14. #14
    Hi. Hope you're well. I'm sorry ti hear your expereinced issues.

    The White dial and Expedition won't be available for a few more openings.

    The Gilt Dial did sell out today quite quickly even though we did stock more than ever.

    The store was open fo a while, maybe ten minutes, after the Gilt had sold though, I will look in to if there were issues with it shutting earlier but it did appear to be working correctly.

    Sorry again for the disappointment and inconvenience.

  15. #15
    Master Scrubnut's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by markrlondon View Post
    The problem is that the sales quota is met by people who check out faster than that. ;-)

    I tried to order two Jubilee bracelets this time

    It's frustrating to lose out but if I hadn't made an error it is likely that I'd have been successful. Hopefully next time.
    I tried to get one as well. It does seem a bit daft that we are talking about a minute, or 3 minutes or 5 minutes to get the order completed. This is not an Olympic event! Why not open for half an hour and sell everything without a quota? It might take a while to fulfil the orders but I doubt anyone minds

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Scrubnut View Post
    I tried to get one as well. It does seem a bit daft that we are talking about a minute, or 3 minutes or 5 minutes to get the order completed. This is not an Olympic event! Why not open for half an hour and sell everything without a quota? It might take a while to fulfil the orders but I doubt anyone minds
    Does seem daft that a website 'shop' has opening times TBH.

    Explanation I've read is that once credit cards are authorised the orders have to be fulfilled within a certain timescale though other retailers somehow manage.

  17. #17
    Grand Master markrlondon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    The store was open fo a while, maybe ten minutes, after the Gilt had sold though, I will look in to if there were issues with it shutting earlier but it did appear to be working correctly.
    The add to basket buttons for all items (including ones still shown as in stock) disappeared at around the 3 minute mark from what I could see. (Although I didn't look at straps, only watches).

    May I ask, will there be a batch of the Jubilee bracelets available at the next opening time?
    Last edited by markrlondon; 24th April 2022 at 16:15.

  18. #18
    Master Scrubnut's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by markrlondon View Post

    May I ask, will there be a batch of the Jubilee bracelets available at the next opening time?
    It would also be good to know what definitely is, and definitely is not, in stock, if possible.

  19. #19
    Yes there will be Jubilee Bracelet in stock next time, I’ll add some extra.

    I’ll also change the next newsletter to highlight clearly what will be available on sale days.


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  20. #20
    Grand Master markrlondon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    Yes there will be Jubilee Bracelet in stock next time, I’ll add some extra.

    I’ll also change the next newsletter to highlight clearly what will be available on sale days.
    Lovely, thank you.

  21. #21
    No problem at all.

    Suggestions are always welcome to try and make the experience better for people.


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  22. #22
    Master Scrubnut's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    Yes there will be Jubilee Bracelet in stock next time, I’ll add some extra.

    I’ll also change the next newsletter to highlight clearly what will be available on sale days.


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    Thanks

  23. #23
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    I wonder if any of the people buying up Eddies stock to be sold on eBay for profit are using online bots? Not sure if this has been discussed before.

  24. #24
    We’ve discussed it but don’t think people are. There is an anti-bot plugin on the site but it rarely seems to trigger, plus we monitor who buys what and there’s no regular pattern with people who get there in the early stages. A high percentage today were first time customers.

    If we can identify people who have obviously bought multiple watches to flip they are blocked from purchasing the site which possibly costs us sales alongside the limit on purchases.


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  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    We’ve discussed it but don’t think people are. There is an anti-bot plugin on the site but it rarely seems to trigger, plus we monitor who buys what and there’s no regular pattern with people who get there in the early stages. A high percentage today were first time customers.

    If we can identify people who have obviously bought multiple watches to flip they are blocked from purchasing the site which possibly costs us sales alongside the limit on purchases.


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    Okay thanks.

  26. #26
    No problem, you raised a great point.

    I know other markets such as gig tickets and trainer launches suffer from bots but at the moment I don’t think it’s an issue.

    Thanks for bringing the subject up.


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  27. #27
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    I was refreshing the page at 13:59:50 and clicked buy and checked out in a minute.

    I think you just have to be prompt.

    Would be useful to know what is available and when and why the shutters come down.

    Looking forward to my new watch.

  28. #28
    Hey, glad you managed to get what you wanted.

    I will remodel the email next time to make it clearer what’s available and remember also to copy that info to the news section of the website.

    The website is always disabled as we have hit around 200 orders, which is what we can ship in 7-10 days. There is a limit on how many of each watch we put in to stock because the system can’t keep up with the speed of orders so we need to try and manually manage the numbers as a backup.


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  29. #29
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    Hey, glad you managed to get what you wanted.

    I will remodel the email next time to make it clearer what’s available and remember also to copy that info to the news section of the website.

    The website is always disabled as we have hit around 200 orders, which is what we can ship in 7-10 days. There is a limit on how many of each watch we put in to stock because the system can’t keep up with the speed of orders so we need to try and manually manage the numbers as a backup.


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    Well business must be good to have to choke off orders to prevent becoming overwhelmed. Nice one.

  30. #30
    Craftsman redhed18's Avatar
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    Just wanted to say I always appreciate the transparency provided by Timefactors, from model inception to store business...

    Big thanks to you Brammer (it's David right?) for everything you are contributing, it's definitely noticed.

  31. #31
    Grand Master learningtofly's Avatar
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    I really don't understand this approach. Just open the shop and extend the delivery times; when items are sold out they're sold out, and when they're back in stock they're back in stock.

    The current process seems to be quite an unedifying experience (I tried it once - never again) and I don't see that it enhances the brand in any way at all.

  32. #32
    Grand Master Dave+63's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by learningtofly View Post
    I really don't understand this approach. Just open the shop and extend the delivery times; when items are sold out they're sold out, and when they're back in stock they're back in stock.

    The current process seems to be quite an unedifying experience (I tried it once - never again) and I don't see that it enhances the brand in any way at all.
    Eddie explained why he can’t do that Tony; once an item has been paid for, it has to be shipped within a certain timeframe or the transaction gets cancelled automating the credit card issuer. So now, he closes the store once it hits the limit of his ability to pack and ship the items in time has been reached.

    It’s not ideal but better to not be able to buy the item than to think you’ve bought it only to have your order cancelled two weeks later.

  33. #33
    Grand Master learningtofly's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave+63 View Post
    Eddie explained why he can’t do that Tony; once an item has been paid for, it has to be shipped within a certain timeframe or the transaction gets cancelled automating the credit card issuer. So now, he closes the store once it hits the limit of his ability to pack and ship the items in time has been reached.

    It’s not ideal but better to not be able to buy the item than to think you’ve bought it only to have your order cancelled two weeks later.
    Thanks Dave. I'm still a bit confused given that this doesn't appear to be an issue on any other sites I know of (such a harsh shipping deadline, I mean); maybe the answer is not to charge the cards until the watches are ready to ship. Got to be better than this, surely?

  34. #34
    Hey. Hope you’re well.

    There’s a few issues in putting everything in stock at once.

    First is the authorisation of payment on the cards running out. We could collect all payments at once but there’s the danger something may happen where we’d have to refund a lot of people and we’d incur all of the processing costs. We take payment once we’ve checked the watch/order is perfectly fulfillable.

    We’ve other things to do. When fulfilling orders that takes up 100% of the work time, every two weeks allows us to fulfil orders but also have time to process repairs/returns, sort new stock/booklets/photos, update the site, etc.

    In the early days of the new site the system didn’t work and we took 600+ orders. Although of course it’s welcome it was a heavy burden knowing we had to fulfil so many orders, we didn’t open for another 5 weeks as we were working 7 days sending watches and there was a constant stream of people asking where their watch was / when the store was opening.

    I know it’s frustrating but the limited stock every two weeks means everyone who does order gets their watch quickly, we can process payment without huge liabilities, we can sort other parts of operation plus we get a couple of days off a month :)

    Sorry that ended up being so long winded but I hope it helps explain :)


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  35. #35
    Grand Master Daddelvirks's Avatar
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    Thanks a bunch.
    Got a new watch, divers watch it is, had to drown the bastard to get it!

  36. #36
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    Hey. Hope you’re well.

    There’s a few issues in putting everything in stock at once.

    First is the authorisation of payment on the cards running out. We could collect all payments at once but there’s the danger something may happen where we’d have to refund a lot of people and we’d incur all of the processing costs. We take payment once we’ve checked the watch/order is perfectly fulfillable.

    We’ve other things to do. When fulfilling orders that takes up 100% of the work time, every two weeks allows us to fulfil orders but also have time to process repairs/returns, sort new stock/booklets/photos, update the site, etc.

    In the early days of the new site the system didn’t work and we took 600+ orders. Although of course it’s welcome it was a heavy burden knowing we had to fulfil so many orders, we didn’t open for another 5 weeks as we were working 7 days sending watches and there was a constant stream of people asking where their watch was / when the store was opening.

    I know it’s frustrating but the limited stock every two weeks means everyone who does order gets their watch quickly, we can process payment without huge liabilities, we can sort other parts of operation plus we get a couple of days off a month :)

    Sorry that ended up being so long winded but I hope it helps explain :)


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    How long will it take to get watches shipped?

  37. #37
    We ship around 25-30 a day. All orders are usual shipped by the following Monday.


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  38. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    We ship around 25-30 a day. All orders are usual shipped by the following Monday.
    Any reason why watches aren't checked and packaged in advance of going on sale, so when orders are placed you print out a shipping label, stick it on, and off it goes. I'm sure more than 30 orders could be sent out per day.

    I guess ultimately certain models are priced too low, and therefor demand is higher that you can manage, but after 26 years online Timefactors really ought to have a slicker online operation. Many other sites in the same industry have nailed it, in a much shorter period.

  39. #39
    Whether they’re packed in advance or at the time of shipping it still takes the same time I guess, we’d just have to close for a while to pack thousands of watches. Just checking and packaging at the time of fulfilment means we know it’s correct at that moment in time.

    This level of demand hasn’t been around for the whole 26 years, far from it, it’s only been an issue really in the last 24 months, maybe a bit longer.

    Other brands may have upscaled operations, having to put the prices up of their watches to cover this I assume but it all depends what the goals of the company are.


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  40. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    Whether they’re packed in advance or at the time of shipping it still takes the same time I guess, we’d just have to close for a while to pack thousands of watches. Just checking and packaging at the time of fulfilment means we know it’s correct at that moment in time.

    This level of demand hasn’t been around for the whole 26 years, far from it, it’s only been an issue really in the last 24 months, maybe a bit longer.

    Other brands may have upscaled operations, having to put the prices up of their watches to cover this I assume but it all depends what the goals of the company are.


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    I get that and understand demand has been exceptionally high for certain models more recently, but for as long as I've been a member here store opening has been sporadic and infrequent which could have never been Eddie's goals for the business at the outset. Limited store openings have led to some models been on sale for over a 10 years, yet the opportunity to actually buy them online has been very minimal over that period. I'm certain if some of the older stock was available 24/7 it would have moved on by now.

    Lower value items like straps are often an impulse buy, and nobody's planning on being impulsive on Sunday 15th for the two minutes you'll next be open, so there's a ton more potential sales that'll sit on the shelf until the next window of opportunity.

    I'm not trying to be critical here, Eddie's done a fantastic job to build this business and having you onboard is helping massively but it's frustrating reading threads like these time again, with very little in the way of improvement, only reasons as to why it is how it is.

  41. #41
    Grand Master markrlondon's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chrisparker View Post
    but for as long as I've been a member here store opening has been sporadic and infrequent which could have never been Eddie's goals for the business at the outset. Limited store openings have led to some models been on sale for over a 10 years, yet the opportunity to actually buy them online has been very minimal over that period. I'm certain if some of the older stock was available 24/7 it would have moved on by now.
    You've been here longer than me but this is not how I remember it. I can clearly remember being able to go to the website and buy at any time. In those days, demand was simply not as great as it is now.

    My impression is that some items have been in stock for a long time simply because they are the pre-super-popularity items. Timefactors, or Smiths specifically, has not always had the Rolex-style maniacal popularity that it benefits from right now. There is a mania for the Smiths brand in particular and anything else does not have the current image of super-desirability.

    It will be interesting to see how the PRS-56 does since this is a Precista-branded watch and so won't appear on the zeitgeist-driven 'hot stuff' Smiths page of the website.

    Quote Originally Posted by chrisparker View Post
    very little in the way of improvement, only reasons as to why it is how it is.
    Define "improvement". In whose opinion is this definition valid?

    Yes, it is unusual in today's world to see a business that has such limited opening hours but the reasons have been explained. We can accept that it is what it is, or we can buy elsewhere. See also Rolex, Ming, Audemars Piguet, Moonswatch, etc. for very similar frustrations. It's quite remarkable for Timefactors to be in such exalted company. ;-)

    Yes, it is very likely that more low demand items and more impulse-type items would be sold if the opening hours were longer than they are but Eddie and Dave are already working at capacity to ship what is currently sold (as well as running the rest of the business) and so the limiting factor is not opening hours. The limiting factor seems to be time to ship/shipping rate within the cost base of the business.

    As many have suggested, expansion is the seemingly obvious answer but it seems to me that it has a very significant minimum quantum of investment to pay off. In other words, a lot more has to sell (and sell reliably over a matter of years beyond the current potentially shorter term manic popularity phase) to be worth doing. Eddie has previously addressed this exact point. It's a major issue for small businesses and I've been there myself, a long time ago.
    Last edited by markrlondon; 28th April 2022 at 02:43.

  42. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    We ship around 25-30 a day. All orders are usual shipped by the following Monday.


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    Thanks for the update, not long now then.

  43. #43
    Quote Originally Posted by chrisparker View Post
    I'm not trying to be critical here, Eddie's done a fantastic job to build this business and having you onboard is helping massively but it's frustrating reading threads like these time again, with very little in the way of improvement, only reasons as to why it is how it is.
    It's no problem at all, I'm more than happy for people to have opinions and new ideas as there's always the chance a solution can be found by people chipping in.

    The store used to be opened infrequently as pre-2020 it was Eddie on his own with a website that didn't really perform the tasks it was meant to. Hopefully an improvement people have seen in recent years is the site being moved to the Shopify platform which as well as looking prettier it's also far more reliable. If you think it's frustrating now I'm sure people will remember when the old sit sold 3x what was in stock and Eddie had to spend a couple of days personally emailing people saying they haven't actually got the watch.

    You're quite correct about older items being left in stock for quite a while but items fall out of favour so it seems wise to try to sell items whilst they're in hot demand. The stock of the hot items is limited though per opening to allow people to purchase older items within the 200 orders, and it will surprise you but there are around 5% of orders per opening that are single straps.



    Thanks Mark for your kind words, it is re-assuring to see people believe we are trying to come up with solutions and our hands are tied by certain factors.

    There are several measures we have in place that are probably detrimental to the business such as limiting the amount of watches per person, we could just let all the anti-flipping measures go and sell a lot more watches but that's not really in the ethos of the business.

    On a personal note I'm also not a fan at all of the 2pm Sunday opening. We believe it's the best time for people all over the world when they'll be available to log on but it does ruin 20+ weekends of my year as I can't plan anything for those Sundays, I can't go out on a Saturday night (I've tried opening the site with huge hangovers and the anxiety almost made me implode, as you can probably imagine it's a very stressful operation) plus we're working the weekends in between that don't have an opening fulfilling orders.
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  44. #44
    Grand Master markrlondon's Avatar
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    ^^^ Thanks for your feedback. Good luck with it all.

    And yes, I can well imagine that monitoring/managing a very high volume sales session is no fun with a hangover. ;-)

  45. #45
    Grand Master Dave+63's Avatar
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    Have you considered a members early access where, say, only those with SC access can place orders?

    This would allow regular members to purchase the watches before the general public. Any left over could then become available a little later once general access is opened up.

    Not perfect I know but at least those less likely to flip for a quick profit will be able to buy them.

    I may be talking out if my backside and it not be possible but it was just a thought.

  46. #46
    Quote Originally Posted by Dave+63 View Post
    Have you considered a members early access where, say, only those with SC access can place orders?

    This would allow regular members to purchase the watches before the general public. Any left over could then become available a little later once general access is opened up.

    Not perfect I know but at least those less likely to flip for a quick profit will be able to buy them.

    I may be talking out if my backside and it not be possible but it was just a thought.

    It is an idea we've thought about but we'll just have to work around some of the practicalities of the site.
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  47. #47
    Grand Master abraxas's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dave+63 View Post
    Have you considered a members early access where, say, only those with SC access can place orders?

    This would allow regular members to purchase the watches before the general public. Any left over could then become available a little later once general access is opened up.

    ......
    Yes, that!

  48. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    It's no problem at all, I'm more than happy for people to have opinions and new ideas as there's always the chance a solution can be found by people chipping in.

    The store used to be opened infrequently as pre-2020 it was Eddie on his own with a website that didn't really perform the tasks it was meant to. Hopefully an improvement people have seen in recent years is the site being moved to the Shopify platform which as well as looking prettier it's also far more reliable. If you think it's frustrating now I'm sure people will remember when the old sit sold 3x what was in stock and Eddie had to spend a couple of days personally emailing people saying they haven't actually got the watch.

    You're quite correct about older items being left in stock for quite a while but items fall out of favour so it seems wise to try to sell items whilst they're in hot demand. The stock of the hot items is limited though per opening to allow people to purchase older items within the 200 orders, and it will surprise you but there are around 5% of orders per opening that are single straps.



    Thanks Mark for your kind words, it is re-assuring to see people believe we are trying to come up with solutions and our hands are tied by certain factors.

    There are several measures we have in place that are probably detrimental to the business such as limiting the amount of watches per person, we could just let all the anti-flipping measures go and sell a lot more watches but that's not really in the ethos of the business.

    On a personal note I'm also not a fan at all of the 2pm Sunday opening. We believe it's the best time for people all over the world when they'll be available to log on but it does ruin 20+ weekends of my year as I can't plan anything for those Sundays, I can't go out on a Saturday night (I've tried opening the site with huge hangovers and the anxiety almost made me implode, as you can probably imagine it's a very stressful operation) plus we're working the weekends in between that don't have an opening fulfilling orders.
    Hi Dave,

    Many thanks for the clear explanation about how the ordering system operates during the short window in which it is open. I must confess that until I had read this I was concerned that those of us who have been asking for a Precista Mission Timer for many years and fully intend to buy a PRS-56 when it is released would essentially be prevented from doing so by the sheer number of hot items, presumably the Smiths Everest and Commando being sold at the same time. I was going to ask if sales could be limited to certain items on a particular Sunday at 2pm. However, if I understand you correctly, the number of hot items sold on a particular Sunday is “throttled” somewhat to allow for the sale of less popular items during the sales window too. If so, thats good to know.

    Cheers,

    Dave

  49. #49
    Grand Master Dave+63's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brammer View Post
    It is an idea we've thought about but we'll just have to work around some of the practicalities of the site.
    Another advantage if you could make it work would be that Eddie could stop the scalpers simply by blocking their access to SC.

    Again, regular members would probably not want to lose access to SC so would be more likely to flip new TF watches on SC at sensible prices.

  50. #50
    I’m pretty sure he does if he notices any dodgy behaviour, that’s one you’ll have to take up with the boss though


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