Deloitte Spotlight: Pre-Owned Watch Market
Deloitte's Latest Report Explains How Gen Z and CPO Programs Are Impacting the Secondary Watch Market
“The development of the pre-owned market has allowed watches to be a liquid asset. Easy to convert to cash when needed by the owner.”
Brian Duffy, Chief Executive Officer The Watches of Switzerland Group
Greetings, watch nerds 🖖
Deloitte recently issued a a series of watch industry reports, and in this edition, they’ve dedicated an entire spotlight to the pre-owned market. Before you roll your eyes at another consultancy report filled with corporate jargon and obvious conclusions, let me tell you - this one’s actually worth a skim. Unlike the quarterly updates we get from Morgan Stanley and WatchCharts (which focus on price trends and market indices), Deloitte has gone a little deeper, surveying over 6,000 consumers across major markets and interviewing industry experts1 to give us a proper look at where the travelling circus is headed.
If you’re too busy to bother, skip to the end for a TL;DR2 😉
Pre Owned is Bigger Than We Thought
If you’ve been following the evolution of the pre-owned market, you’ll know it has been about as stable as a Hublot investment portfolio. Deloitte reckons the pre-owned market is growing faster than the primary market and could match it in size within the next decade.
According to Deloitte, consumer interest in buying pre-owned has doubled in the last 4 years, and those saying they are “not interested in watches”, has dropped dramatically (see grey areas on chart below). In more simple terms, people are now increasingly seeking out pre-owned watches, as opposed to just ‘warming up’ to them.