destrodan
506
That's really unfortunate.
I feel bad for the individuals affected by this. It would hurt to know that you're on the list and then find out the dealer is closing. It can also create a panic within the watch community and lead to longer phantom waiting lists everywhere beyond the local dealer. It's very similar to university applications in the US -- prospective students for a highly selective university often apply to 10 or 15 of these universities in the hope of being accepted to the best possible option.
This could also create a potential 'asset bubble' for Rolex as they might know if dealers have a 3 or 5 year waiting list for sports models, but they wouldn't know which portion of those individuals are repeated on other lists and might get their watch from another dealer. Not sure how they determine their production numbers of the sports line, but hopefully it's not based on dealer requests (driven by waiting lists) as inventory will catch up with a significant enough bump in economic conditions which would cause the phantom repeat customers to dry up very quickly due to the exponential repetitive nature of the lists.
At the same time, I don't see how Rolex can address the situation without removing all relationships between customers and ADs and having a master list for each locality, nation or worldwide even.
A tough dilemma for sure.
Kind regards,
Dan