AP/VC Dealer Experience in Vegas--Small Rant

[haakon59]

My typical "purchasing style" before buying a watch is to first shop around at various stores to see if they actually have the model I am interested in stock (so I can actually try it on if possible) and perhaps get a feel for whether the dealer is open to discounting or not. I usually don't sell my watches so I make sure I am likely to be happy about the watch by delaying my purchase up front.

The last few months I have become attracted to a one of the AP Royal Oak models, 15300ST. . . etc. Now this particular model is one of their latest editions and is powered by their newly developed automatic movement, AP caliber 3120. Although AP produces really fine timepieces whether the movement is originally their's or someone else's, in this case I specifically mentioned to the saleswoman that there are several versions of the Royal Oak sold, but that I was interested ONLY in determining if they had this particular model in stock and what the price would be. I assumed that since this is Vegas that they wouldn't dicker on the price, so I didn't try to negotiate or anything, at least at this point. Regardless, I gave the saleswoman the full model number of the watch I wanted and again told her that a major reason I wanted this particular model is because it had the AP 3120 caliber movement inside. I also asked her to price out a VC I was also interested in. She told me she would call me back in 30 minutes. OK.

Well, she did call me back, but quoted me an unexpectedly low price--because this RO was not the specific version I was after. BUT she didn't know that. I asked her if this was the specific model I asked her about and she said yes. Then, instead of confirming this because I mentioned that there were quite a few of the older versions around and I didn't want one of them, she instead tried to nail down when I would be visiting and that she might be able to offer a discount on the room. So I told her thanks for the offer of a discount on the room and all, but I told her I was concerned that this was not the right model of AP RO and could she check again. She told me again that it was.

Here is what strikes me: this is a very fine retailer and the woman was appropriately courteous to me and all that. BUT what did bother me a little is that she either didn't know why getting the right model was particularly important and she didn't seem to know watches. Since I specifically made a big deal out of getting this specific model, I would have thought she would have mentioned to me that they didn't have it in stock but could order it. She could at that time offer me the model she did have and query how important the differences were to me. Although in this case I caught the error, I can imagine the hassle it would have been if I bought the watch that day and either had it mailed to me and discovered it was the wrong model or if I traveled down to Vegas specifically to look at it (and buy it). Wow. What a colossal waste of time that would have been. I am a bit surprised that a salesperson would ignore my very specific instructions like that. Just a rant on a Sunday!