Rules don’t apply to the Rich and famous

[sm84]

I’ve been visiting multiple Ads outside of my regular AD and in different states just to get a feel of what is happening in the watch world. I’ve been doing the same with other big brands too but at their boutique stores. What I’ve started to observe is slightly annoying and appalling.

First, if you are shopping outside of your state but with the same parent company (meaning they have stores in multiple locations and they are not a boutique) they don’t even want to consider your purchase history. They expect you to start from scratch. This was truly annoying and appalling.

Boutique or AD, they all say the same thing that you need to build a relationship and a relationship often starts with buying multiple pieces most of them you probably aren’t even interested. The second thing that they say is that they want to sell watches only to people who truly enjoy watch collecting and not to flippers.

So, I ended up asking how is it that, if that is the case there still are flippers and people who seem to be able to release a hot watch that probably is just announced in a matter of days on to a grey market site? How is it that the rich and famous can openly say that they buy watches as investment pieces with the obvious intent of flipping, and still be offered more pieces? So are you only selling to the rich, and the rules don’t apply to them? They don’t get blacklisted etc?

In most cases the sales associates react like they had a mental short circuit and then they say that’s just how the Watch world is or that they are just a sales associate and they don’t make the rules.

My personal take on this is that, if someone gives u a chance to buy a hard to get watch it will help fuel further purchases and therefore build history. However, I’ve also heard stories where SAs take a chance on someone and that someone flips the watch which is the reason I feel this whole situation exists. How can you trust that someone won’t flip? At the same time when I see super rich people doing the same without any repercussions it’s even more annoying.

I agree with many over here that if the cost of building a relationship is about spending money on something you don’t want, then it’s better to save that money and just go grey from a reputed seller or CPO from a reputed store. Either ways if u buy unwanted items, in the long run you’d probably be spending the same. For ex: I like a specific watch but the boutique openly tells me to buy 2 pieces at least totaling over $50k just to be considered for the watch I want, which retails at approx $10k.

What are your experiences?