It was my lucky day!

[Rolex-fan]

Guys I can’t believe my luck. A couple of weeks ago, I walked out of the Rolex boutique in Santa Clara with this beauty on my wrist. How did this happen? I can only say I gave my opinion to the salesman (he happened to be the owner’s son, which I didn’t know while venting) about how frustrating it was to walk into these empty Rolex stores and be reminded time and again to build a relationship. I said, "What else do you guys want customers to do?" We keep getting turned away. Sometimes you guys put us on a waitlist and then say there is no more waitlist. You, as ADs, complain about supply and demand and long wait times, yet the same watch can be produced in two days if you pay a premium to a grey market dealer.What’s going on? "

The dude patiently listened to all my venting and politely told me that it was true: there were no more wait lists and it was based on allocation."
I said, "Then it’s contradictory to what you guys say about no waitlist. If there is an allocation, it means you are keeping some kind of list". He said, "We huddle as a team and then everyone chimes in about who should get what, and then as a team we decide GMT goes to salesman X’s customer A, Submariner would be sold to salesman B’s customer Y, and so on." He also cleared up a lot of confusion about grey dealers. He said, "It’s a wrong notion that we are selling watches to grey dealers. It’s actually the flippers who walk in and make quick bucks selling the watches right after they walk out of the store, and this is something we are trying to curb.
I said, "Look, I have this Rolex, bought in such a year, still have it. I have a RADO on my wrist that I bought twenty years ago. I have this Omega Speedmaster (that watch brought a smile on his face and he said it was iconic.) So in short, I am a collector. "
He told me to keep building a relationship with his employee that I mentioned at the beginning of our. conversation. Though I didn’t want to say anything bad, I still told him I would like to have a business relationship with him. I took his business card and that’s how I came to know he was the owner’s son and was now running the show. Then we walked inside the boutique, looking at exhibition models. He stopped at a case and, as if talking to himself, he said, "Oh, it was being purchased by another customer. Maybe the purchase didn’t go through and it’s back. Let me check. " He then came back in a couple of minutes and said, "Yeah, this is available." I asked him, "what is it?" and he showed me this beautiful two tone Wimbledon Datejust 41 in all its glory. The rest is history, and I am glad I didn’t let it go. So, after all, it’s not as gloomy as it looks. The ADs are there to sell the watches. It's about being in the right place at the right time 😀