In addition, new businesses will pop up to help small brands get online and market themselves properly for worldwide sales. There are a number of logistical and legal issues to figure out, but it is all coming sooner than you might think to a place near you. As of now major brands have begun to offer online sales. They still aren't as smooth as they should be, but the slow to change watch industry is seriously changing course.
In addition, new businesses will pop up to help small brands get online and market themselves properly for worldwide sales. There are a number of logistical and legal issues to figure out, but it is all coming sooner than you might think to a place near you. As of now major brands have begun to offer online sales. They still aren't as smooth as they should be, but the slow to change watch industry is seriously changing course.
Authorized retailers all over the world are having their status as authorized dealers stripped from them. Brands are finding any little reason to do so, or are simply pulling the cord on the relationship. All of this is in preparation for an onslaught of brand boutiques (first in major markets and cities), and of course for online brand sales. Does this mean that every authorized dealer or independent watch retailer will go extinct? No. They will still be helpful as many of them have excellent customer relationships and placement. But they will be much less common. Also, smaller independent brands that don't have the resources for such ambitious plans as the major companies will find new welcoming doors at retailers that traditionally would have shunned them.The future as I see it will be very different. Major watch brands will have their own brand boutiques all over the world and offer direct to consumer online sales. Prices will be very static, and the gray market will shrink significantly (unless the brands themselves feed that market). The remaining independent watch retailers will carry smaller brands, and be harder to find.
