Most grey market dealers have a list of authorized wholesale buyers and wait listers (flippers) who legitimately purchase Rolex, Omega, etc watches from authorized dealers who then resell to the grey market vendors. Knowing an authorized dealer salesperson who will call when their store receives an allocation of “steel Rolex sport watches” is a Godsend, because you can flip it immediately for a nice profit to grey dealer. It’s a game of cat and mouse with Rolex, if they catch you flipping their watches you‘re pretty much blacklisted along with your inside salesperson. Flip enough watches and you basically own a Rolex or other nice watch for free by just fronting some money to get in the game.
Gray market watches?
- Thread starter ctr
- Start date
Rhody
I'm a Lumberjack.
The prices of steel Rolex watches us so insane. But I’m assuming that people are buying to keep the system you describe operating.
Rolex and others are like certain razor manufacturers, in being great at creating false market demand by restricting availability, controlling the authorized dealer network, allocating the most desirable models to preferred dealers, and waitlists. All this creates a false sense of desirability, because who doesn’t want the bragging rights in the boardroom or golf course showing off an unobtainable model? Someone with the disposable income to spend $14-25k on a SS watch, they surely don’t mind paying $3-6k over the msrp to avoid the waitlists. It gets even stupider when it’s a limited color, special dial font, or an Arabic numbered dial…still just a watch but it conveys your wealth, status, and peaking order instantly to other likeminded people. “Time is too precious to keep on a cheap watch” or something silly like that keeps em coming back and buying more watches.
Montblanc did the same thing about 10-15 yrs ago. Restricted their replacement parts to their authorized dealers. If you needed a new clip you had to go to their store and pay about as much as the pen cost on the gray marker sites.I would buy new from a grey mkt dealer so long as I thought that they would stand behind their store warranty i.e. Jomashop. The Omega you describe is a good bet. The new Co-Axial Seamasters have a service interval that equals or exceeds the newly expanded 5 yr warranty anyway. The older non Coaxial ones have a movement that is ETA based and fairly robust. Omega OEM parts and their equivalents are widely available for these watches.
What I would not do is buy a Rolex at 1.5 to 2x retail from a grey mkt dealer with the expectation that the mothership would honor any warranty at all. Moreover, as Rolex continues to stay "unobtanium" they have also tightened their distribution of repair parts to non AD affiliated watchmakers setting up a perfect storm. You have a non AD acquired Rolex in need of service that can only be done at the mothership at full retail because your non AD affiliated watchmaker and/or sales source cannot get the parts for the repair. Therefore by very definition, you would have to be saving at least the cost of the service on the front end when you bought the watch presuming that money matters in this realm as I know to some serious watch folks, it does not.
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Gray Market just arrived a few hours ago. Haven't bothered to set the date.
Saved over $1,000 off suggested retail, which is what any A.D. will charge.
Saved over $1,000 off suggested retail, which is what any A.D. will charge.
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