RECOMMENDED READING: The watch grey market isn’t black and white

Nick Kenyon

If you’ve ever looked to buy a watch on the internet, you will have invariably come across grey market watch websites offering a surprisingly good deal on the watch you are interested in. This leads to several questions about the broader mechanics of watch retail, and the watch grey market:

• Why would I buy from an Authorised Dealer if this is so much cheaper?
• How do these sites get the watches they are selling?
• Why do watch brands allow themselves to be undercut on price?

All of these are fair questions; the answers of which are often challenging to find. The majority of luxury watch buyers generally consider themselves financially savvy folks, yet the majority of the bragging online is about the strength of their AD relationships, not about the bargain they picked up on www.somerandomwebsite.com. Why is it these money-focused deal makers choose to spend more at an AD, than cash in on double-digit savings from a grey market site?

John Keil, a man with expertise in the watch retail business, explains that the source of these bargain watches is a surprising one, that speaks to the core of how challenging this problem is to overcome. Quite often the origin of the watches found on grey market websites is the brands themselves, a fact that will leave some people scratching their heads. He goes into further detail, as well as some possible solutions in his article that you can read here on Quill & Pad.