I don't understand the recent Rolex SS craze/shortage. What am I missing?

So, people at the RF say that when ALL of the local AD in Denver are telling us, "sorry, but we haven't been getting hardly any new SS sport watches in and only got FIVE stainless steel Daytonas last year" that they are lying to our faces?

Dealers who sell more watches get more watches from Rolex. Dealers in Asia (Hong Kong especially) are getting lots of SS Rolexes. They're often sold out the back door and end up on eBay, chrono24, etc. at 1.5--2 times MSRP. You can find all the SS Subs and Daytonas you'd ever want online---for a price.

Not sure what you're saying. 3 is not many for a high-profile shop? It's a lot more than zero.

SS Shortage is artificial.

Go for gold.

So let me see if I have this right: executives at Rolex, genius marketers that they are, decided to constrain production of certain watches so that

(a) Honest ADs would piss off customers and lay off staff because they have no watches to sell;
(b) Dishonest ADs could make greater profit selling them out the back door to grays;
(c) Flippers and gray dealers could turn huge profits selling watches online and via non-authorized dealers;
(d) Average citizens wanting a Rolex would get tired of 5-year waitlists and 2X prices and so would turn to other brands like Omega.

Brilliant!

Nailed it.

Very nice watch. I've seen the Rose Gold Sky-Dweller with a brown leather strap and it looked really nice.

Maybe you should visit during the day? 😉 😁

Yeah it looks really sad! 😀

Not even a two-tone or DJ?

How can AD operate without any watches to sell? Are they firing saleman?

Rolex sell 800k watches per year at a rumoured 30% profit margin with HQ revenue of USD5b+. They're a private organisation that don't answer to the sharemarket every quarter and can focus on the longer term. Seems to me Rolex's senior management can go to sleep at night without worrying too much about either their short term numbers or SS watch output.

Taking to a Rolex AD at the weekend about availability of Rolex watches, they gave what to me appeared to be honest answers to my questions.

In summary; the store gets all types and styles of watches coming through on a regular basis, however they have very lengthy waiting lists for all popular SS models, one list has over 100 names on it and based on current supply levels it would take between 9 and 10 years to clear if everyone who asked to be added to the list took up the option when each watch arrived in store and no-one else added their name to the list.

If I wanted a SS watch at Rolex entry prices I would be looking at a minimum of 6 months before they could get me an OP, an Explorer would be 6-9 months everything else would be over 12 months as a minimum, the exception would be a SS Datejust, that would be under 3 months but I am not sure why this would be quicker.

The store doesn't take a deposit when you add your name to a list, they e-mail the next person on the list around 3-4 weeks before a watch they are waiting for comes in to verify if the person is still interested, if they receive a negative response or no reply then your name is removed from the list and the next person is contacted, they said that they are pretty brutal about it as selling each watch is not difficult.

The store was well stocked but all of the watches had the addition of gold in some form, so nothing in plain SS in the store, the staff I spoke to had no issues with Rolex, they made sure that they explained the waiting list process to all prospective customers but people were happy to be added to waiting lists.

I don't know how this applies to other areas but this was a UK store, they definitely appeared to know in advance the watches that have been allocated to them so that they have time to make contact with people on the waiting list and check if the watch was still wanted. Form my conversation there didn't appear to be a shortage of watches, just a shortage of watches that could be displayed in cabinets.