Just saw this article and think it's quite funny that Patek buy flipped watches from grey dealers to see the serial number cross checking against which AD originally sold the watch. They don't like the grey market so use it to get to the bottom of a watches history. Bit odd. They could easily fix the problem another way.
So the question is what happens to all the Nautilus and Aquanauts that Patek have bought from grey dealers? Do they get sold to staff at a loss? Destroyed? Used for parts? Sold back to ADs as pre-owned?“We buy back a lot of watches every year from the secondary market, because we want to know why a watch is for sale,” Mr Stern tells the New York Times.
https://www.watchpro.com/patek-phili...-for-flippers/
Breitling did this too and punished the retailers. It will never work, too much $$ to be made by sales floor staff by selling to mates and splitting profits.
Weird business model. Sell item to AD wholesale who sells at retail. Then buy the same item at 4-5x wholesale to find out which AD sold it.
Rumours Rolex do the same thing but this is the first I'm hearing it confirmed by a brand.
LOL! Notwithstanding the likelihood that manipulating the market in this manner is almost certainly in contravention of a number of trading regulations - notably competition laws, I am truly impressed by the Stockholm-Syndrome tier cognitive dissonance achieved by some of you!
Look, if the kindly gnomes of Vallée de Joux wished the deserving masses to be certain of achieving PP ownership, they could ... you know ... increase production, reduce prices... um... you know, crazy stuff like that - the sort of stuff that people who live beyond the realms of fairyland do - instead of cynically and surreptitiously manipulating the market.
The watchpro website link in the op is presently dead, so I can't check the release date.
But isn't this a little too perfectly timed with the stories of crashing grey PP prices? The best way of trying to limit the downward spiral at this point is to suggest that PP are buying back grey pieces to identify those who are flogging them on, thus reducing the grey availability by scaring new owners from flipping them quickly
Patek whether by design or not have become caught up in the steel sports bubble and the name Patek has reached an audience it would not normally on the back of the Aquanaut/Nautilus excessive prices demanded by the Grey market and subsequent profits available to flippers. To many of this new audience, Patek is only about a Nautilus or Aquanaut with little to no interest in the rest of the Patek catalogue and with the hype and bubble your brand name rides high but when either the hype dies or the bubble collapse, it is not just the models which become less lustrous but the brand name itself gets dragged down. If Patek are buying back stock which has made its way to the Secondary dealers five minutes after leaving one of its boutiques etc, my money would be on this being less about tracking down the flippers etc but instead trying to keep the hype for the steel sports from falling into free fall and the potential damage to the brand name. No brand I feel ever really enjoys the levels of hype and excessive prices being demanded by the market because they know very well that when the hype stops you better have one very strong safety net, nobody wants to be the next Panerai.
Just another free marketing stunt by PP.
Somewhat similar to company’s share buy-backs.
Can’t see a problem.
Nonsense - what law, specifically please.
Hmm, let me think about that for a minute. Let’s just increase production, for a brand that trades on exclusivity - you really couldn’t make it up. I think a better grasp of supply/demand economics might help.
Privately owned companies aren’t really under the same pressures.
Also, buying a small number of watches to out misconduct from some AD’s is probably quite a small investment, and boosts sales more towards their own boutiques.
It's just a matter of time...
I just want to buy one of the ones they've bought. A nearly new aquanaut direct from Patek would be lovely. But will they "want what it owes me"? Ha.
Chortle!
No.
No...
But do feel free to waste your own time researching them - lots of information to be found online (I'd concentrate on restrictive practices, anti-competition, and price-fixing laws to start with), though as we both know it would take a practising expert in the field plus test prosecutions to actually establish applicability...
Be a waste of time though, won't it? Once you've bought-in to this madness, immunity to reason becomes the primary symptom.
Would be lovely, a Patek certified Nautilus pre owned from a boutique at below RRP, unless of course they do what the AD’s currently practise and have the pre owned stock at above RRP and reference market conditions as the reason!
Never seen and never will in current market conditions but it would be eye catching if passing an AD or boutique and they had just received some steel sports from the brand and placed in the window at RRP but just beside they had the pre owned models at 200% mark ups etc.