While on a shopping trip this weekend, decided to have a nose in the Watchfinder store. Spoke to the sales team and tried on a few pieces of interest. Then got talking about trading in my trusty PO8900, if the price was right. Bearing in mind this watch is just over a year old with all the bits and bobs, was surprised when the email valuation came through this morning. These are list at £4,970 and grey around £3,800 to £4,200. I paid around £4,100. £2,000 - £2,200 was the value subject to inspection. This is a watch they have on sale for £3,950. Discuss.......
I guess they are just a business looking to maximise their markup. Also depends what kind of a discount you'd get on the new item
It's their business, makes sense. But, what's the price for used PO8900 people have paid here or elsewhere?
These stores have a lot of overhead, salaries, rent, insurance, utilities and need to make a healthy profit.
What did you expect? 50-60% of new price is not bad. Your model is not "hot" or particularly desirable... if you want more you will have to sell it yourself, and work for it.
Yeah in my experience I would not put up a watch for another at a store, they usually give you as little as possible to maximize there profit.
As they have grown exponentially as a business, they have looked to try and set the market in certain pieces. Now backed by the financial clout of the Richmond Group they have widened their buy/sell margins considerably with the result that their buy offers are often seen as derisory. The only part of Watchfinder I find palatable are there excellent you tube videos.
Rule number 4) Never sell to a dealer https://omegaforums.net/threads/condition-condition-condition-and-other-pieces-of-advice.1716/
Good replies, and I don't begrudge anyone earning a living...it's a free country. I had no intention of selling, they offered the valuation. I guess you'd need to be desperate to get out at that price, and would expect the valuation to reflect the discount you may bag buying used from them. The shop front was dominated by Rolex and the counter display was oddly Rolex biased also.....maybe a theme.
I'll suggest that aside from people being desperate to pay the rent and not having the time to sell it themselves, a lot of people don't know how to sell things, don't have the market knowledge to know what a "good" price is, and/or are afraid of all of the theft, fraud and deceit going on with Internet sales or just sales in general of luxury goods. So it's a good thing that there are dealers to help out those unfortunate souls. And think about it another way: all you know is eBay and all you have is a camera on your phone. So you list it on eBay with a lousy description and terrible pics, and end up getting even less (after fees) than what the dealer offered.
I don't think this is unique to Watchfinder so much as it is just business as usual for a volume online dealer. No business is going to go through the effort of receiving, inspecting, authenticating, potentially servicing, and then selling a watch if there is only a few hundred dollars in the bid/ask spread. Typical gross margins in retail across merchandise categories are in the range of 40-65%. I've not worked for an online retailer so don't have much insight into such a businesses financials. However, at a traditional bricks & mortar retailer, that level of GM (40-65%) typically yields profit margins of less than 10% after you've allocated all other direct and indirect costs (facilities overhead, labor, marketing, etc.). I've not been an active trader/seller of watches yet, but have actively bought and sold a number of cars over the years. When it comes to cars, the typical expectation is that dealer retail price is 15-20% above private party price. Similarly, dealer trade-in price is typically 20-25% below private party. Applying that rule of thumb to your watch yields: $2200 trade-in $2750 private party $3300 dealer retail According to that math, you were low balled to the tune of ~20%. Perhaps you could do better at a smaller dealer that has a harder time procuring inventory? Good luck.
When you sell a watch only a year after you buy it you lose a lot... (With very few exceptions) As most of us are not in the watch business it is normal so one should always be careful of what one buys... Cheers
As I said, wasn’t expecting to sell, didn’t want to sell. Just curious and had never sold a watch before. So information only. I have no expectations going in other than taking a break from my kids bleeding me dry buying new shoes. Just lending my experience. Hopefully if we all share in good faith it raises all watchers and contributors knowledge base. I’m not a retailer and haven’t watched Dragons Den for a while, so talk of gross margins and the like is wasted on me. I clearly left wiser, knowing this was an avenue closed off if I ever did want to offload.
We know that their buying point is going to be at the lower end of the range but how are Watchfinders selling prices? They offer a 12 month guarantee which you won’t get from a private sale, and looking at their website there is a wide range of watches to choose from, anyone bought from them, what was the experience like?
Supply and demand + overhead, profit margin and vat impact. So sounds about right. Sounds a lot like trading a car in part exchange. Only other thing they need to do is talk up how the replacement will hold value better and that the ‘cost to change’ is only £££ per month!