SDC Weekly 106; Eric Coudray; Christopher Ward Update
Phillips Priority Bidding, Grey Market Discounts, More on Gen Z, Hulsman Easy Perpetual, A Rant from Collectability's John Reardon, and more!
🚨 Welcome back to SDC Weekly!
If you’re keeping up with SDC Weekly, you will know I’ve recently been banging on about Gen Z and the luxury industry’s growing problem with this demographic; it appears I’m not the only one 😂. To quote this WSJ article:
Luxury brands also seem to have a problem on their hands with younger consumers. Last year, sales to Gen Z shoppers fell 7%, equivalent to a $5.7 billion drop in spending and the sharpest pullback among all generations. They appear disillusioned with luxury goods after stories about abuses in the industry’s supply chain and extreme price markups went viral on social media.
People are tuning out online. Growth in the number of people who follow luxury brands on social media is flatlining and online engagement in 2025 is only 40% what was recorded in 2022, Bain notes.
The article concludes:
But the industry is 50% bigger today than it was a decade ago. Even if the latest crop of designers nail what young customers want, it will be tougher for mature brands to grow at the clip that shareholders have become accustomed to.
To quote the average Brit: “Interesting!”
Estimated reading time: ~23 mins
Admin note: Unofficial Editor missed this one - he’s currently holed up in a hotel room trying to authenticate a suspiciously clean Extract from the Archives. While he sorts that out, click here to read this post online and ensure you see all corrections made after publishing.
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🔥 Grey Market Discounts
Let’s start with a tasty little story that shows how luxury brands play the discount game while trying to keep their hands brands clean. A collector recently shared their experience trying to buy an IWC Portofino Chronograph at a retail price of €7,000.
Our collector found the watch on Chrono24 for €5,300 from a grey market dealer. When they asked where the dealer would source it, the dealer casually mentioned: “From IWC official Dealer.” In other words, they’d buy it brand new from an authorised dealer and flip it for a profit (but still manage to undercut retail by €1,700).
Can you guess what happened next?