The UBS Global Wealth Report explains why everything feels so expensive. 52 million 'everyday millionaires' got rich from property, not income - they're asset-rich but cash-poor. Add currency chaos, a $9 trillion wealth transfer to women, and you've got the watch market's identity crisis explained.
Patek and Rolex--two very different companies, both doing it right. "Right" from a sales/revenue/profit perspective, anyway. Neither could do what it's doing without a company/brand image that has taken many decades to develop and solidify. But their approaches exactly illustrate the point you make in this excellent essay.
Rolex, essentially unavailable at retail without either a long wait or a long and expensive relationship with an AD, or both, is nevertheless not unduly hiking prices. They're boosting their status by using the old Birkin bag trick: making you earn the right to purchase, and making damn sure everyone potentially in the market for a Rolex knows it. But by keeping their retail prices reasonable (e.g. not all that different from Omega or Breitling, who look foolish as a result) they remain something that many affluent-but-not-rich people can still aspire to. Their status (and, yes, quality) allows them to do that. Omega? Breitling? Not so much.
And Patek sees that there are many hundreds of thousands of people out there who have enough money that spending even six figures (dollars or CHF, or equivalent) on a watch is something they can do on a whim, and prices its wares accordingly. Which they can do because, Thierry Stern's insufferable arrogance notwithstanding, they have the status to do that. And, at their higher reaches, also the quality (or so I've been led to believe, not having any personal experience with those watches even for a few minutes).
Patek and Rolex--two very different companies, both doing it right. "Right" from a sales/revenue/profit perspective, anyway. Neither could do what it's doing without a company/brand image that has taken many decades to develop and solidify. But their approaches exactly illustrate the point you make in this excellent essay.
Rolex, essentially unavailable at retail without either a long wait or a long and expensive relationship with an AD, or both, is nevertheless not unduly hiking prices. They're boosting their status by using the old Birkin bag trick: making you earn the right to purchase, and making damn sure everyone potentially in the market for a Rolex knows it. But by keeping their retail prices reasonable (e.g. not all that different from Omega or Breitling, who look foolish as a result) they remain something that many affluent-but-not-rich people can still aspire to. Their status (and, yes, quality) allows them to do that. Omega? Breitling? Not so much.
And Patek sees that there are many hundreds of thousands of people out there who have enough money that spending even six figures (dollars or CHF, or equivalent) on a watch is something they can do on a whim, and prices its wares accordingly. Which they can do because, Thierry Stern's insufferable arrogance notwithstanding, they have the status to do that. And, at their higher reaches, also the quality (or so I've been led to believe, not having any personal experience with those watches even for a few minutes).