Horological Meandering

fernando
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Echo your sentiments Marcus. :)

Quote:

"Quality and value can be found in all places, the game is dodging the constraining influences of the masses and finding the not so apparent gems. A true connoisseur will never let a marketing department define his impression of “value” and “quality”.

We as enthusiasts, connoisseurs or PuristS have to cease being mere puppets of the “big” brands’ marketing departments, trying to explain why their products have to be so expensive. Let’s make our own evaluations of quality and value, and let us draw our own conclusions."

On the flip side: what is the poor CEO of a watch brand going to do in such a competitive environment, when shareholders are more concerned with the bottom line than providing absolute 'value' to clients? He/she wants to prove his worth by increasing market share, profit margins, ramp up production in order to sell more watches etc.

The quick and easy way to do this is to lower production costs - reduce man hours/watch in the manufacturing process, sell more watches at higher margins by promoting them as LEs, special anniversary, cross branding and jewelled pieces etc. Target the 'new money' areas with blatant marketing and brand ambassadors, tied in with high profile events. All of this does absolutely nothing to improve the overall workmanship and quality of the watches themselves.

If you take into account the often outrageous and exorbitant rents boutiques and retailer have to fork out in places like HK, New York and Tokyo for example, it's no wonder people are paying more for less as demand grows and resources such as experienced watchmakers are becoming scarce.

Well, this is the world we live in and it's up to each one of us to decide how best to extract the most from our resources and that which gives us the most pleasure. At least for those of us that visit this fine forum, we are fortunate to benefit from wise words and valued opinions from people like yourself.

Best

Fernando