I’ve always had a different mindset when buying cars vs watches. With cars, I know I’m eventually going to get rid of them. With watches, my plan is to keep forever barring some unforeseen circumstance where I need money fast. Because of that, watch depreciation doesn’t bother me.

 

I feel that it’s 2 completely different things, you get the carpet roll out when buying a watch versus haggling and dealing with car salesmen, granted me having a sales background myself makes me see through bs sales pitch, watch sales people are more genuine about the experience and don’t quickly judge you based on your credit, you can either get it or you don’t.

With that said being a service member and seeing the prices on new watches on AAFES, it’s a bargain no other A/D will ever top, but I also feel buying an Omega from a boutique should be at least experienced once, I loved it, but I also love saving some money a lot more

 

It is likely that gray market prices will always be better than purchasing from an authorized dealer. Since I'm not a "flipper" and was looking for a watch that I'll wear 24/7, I bought from an authorized dealer. It was a wonderful no hassle experience. I paid list for my Seamaster 300M and got a nice pair of earrings for my wife as a gift from the seller. The 300M is my last luxury watch so saving a few hundred bucks was not as important to me as the benefits of a sale from a reputable outlet.

 

yes, the OB on Oxford Street certainly seems to prioritise the ability to speak a language over knowing much about the product for what I assume are similar reasons.

 

I missed that bit bout the NYC OB earlier. I've been to the 5th avenue one a few times and I don't blame them for having Mandarin speaking sales people. They would be fools not to since 5th ave and NYC in general attracts so many shopping tourists. Shopping for Omegas here is probably cheaper for them even without any special discounts since they can just get the tax refunded and retail price here is lower than retail in whatever home country they're from.

My specific sales associate (Brennan Davidson) has been great. We chatted a lot about watches in general and hung out in the lounge area with some drinks. I purchased my GSOTM from him and plan on going back for another purchase once the 2021 Tresors hit the market. I dropped in earlier this summer for some complimentary watch cleaning and check the boutique was offering and he showed me preview pieces for the new 2021 lineup as well as a demo Snoopy they had in the shop. It would not be fair to say that the workers in the OB don't care about watches.

Oh by the way, if you want to save on NYC sales tax, you can ask the shop to ship your watch to a friend in another state (like NJ or CT). I didn't do this at the OB since I wanted my watch ASAP but I've done it at two other shops in the city. One of the two was actually OK with me walking out with the watch + box and just shipped some catalogs to the address I provided.

 

Be very careful with this strategy. Back in the early 90's I was living in NJ and would travel into Manhattan every few weeks and over a year or so I bought a few watches from Tourneau on Madison Ave. They shipped the watches to my NJ address sans taxes. Then about nine months later I get a letter from NJ's tax authorities informing me they have reciprocal agreements with some states in order to collect the legally due sales taxes. Boom, I was presented a NJ sales tax bill for the three watches (a Rolex and two AP's). It's the last time I bought from Tourneau. You may get away with this scheme with smaller retailers but legally you have to report the sale to your state of residence and pay the sales tax due. I doubt you would escape tax in 2021 buying through an Omega Boutique. The salesman may tell you you can avoid the tax, but the back office accountants will report it through the reciprocal program. I bought the Apollo 11 50th from the St. Louis, Missouri boutique with the request to send it to my Texas address when it arrived, I was charged the Texas sales tax upon the sale, no escaping it.

 

Hmm interesting. I did this at a Breitling boutique and at a smaller AD shop. I guess we'll see what happens.
I doubt the AD will bother reporting it, the Breitling shop might.