Thanks Hammy. So that building with the Duchamp sign must be a photoshop job?
Still a little confusing for me,a mere mortal. I am certainly not trying to defend Duchamp (far from it especially with all that ott sales patter).
Okay broken this down to make it easier. Yes it's photoshop job, they did it to a photo of the new facility not long after it was built, from memory it was built about 2010ish.
And ‘some’ of them are Swiss made?
Yes, those with "Swiss Made" on the dial, Those that have "Swiss Movement", "Swiss Design" or nothing are made in the Far East. The watchmaker (Watchmakers SA) who makes their watches is a big company, they have facilities in Switzerland & Far East, they make watches for a lot of brand, ie Timberland, Police, Roamer, Swiss Military by Hanova etc.
You are saying they are decent watches but the ‘same’ watch under a different brand name can be bought at a cheaper price?
It’s really interesting to me how these companies work. So difficult to trust anyone these days..especially sales presenters on IW…but maybe,just maybe they believe what they are told.
They are decent watches at the right price, £3000 RRP is nowhere near the right price for an Audace. The Roamer price is closer to their truer value.
How the companies/brands work is a bit more complicated. This is how i look at the brands but for easy reading i've done it in a rough general guide, there can be odd crossovers within categories but as i say just a rough guide.
There are different types of brands.
1.Watchmaking brands - They either make or assemble the watches themselves in their own facilities. Of course there are levels within this category, from Affordable to high end luxury. This category contains familiar brands like Rolex, Omega, Tag, Longines, Tissot, Hamilton, Junghans, Glashutte, Seiko, Casio, Orient, Seagull, San Martin, Vostok Europe and a whole host of others. Usually anyone within this category will makes decent watches, from affordable to luxury. Most collectors in the watch collecting community will have multiples of these brands in their collections.
2.Established non-watchmaking brands - These are long established brands which no longer make their own watches, largely due to quartz crisis, but brand survived by outsourcing the production side to Independent watchmaking companies. Brands like Mathey-Tissot, Roamer, Rotary etc. Again withing this category you should be getting decent watches at the right price.
3.Fashion brands - As the name suggests, just watches from brands that start in fashion but then added accessories like watches, apart from the odd case, most have their watches made by a 3rd party watchmaker. In this category quality and value for money will vary, tend to be overpriced due to fashion name. Apart from odd Fashion brands these don't tend to be in a collectors eyesight, more for those just wanting an everyday watch/present for someone.
4.Micro brands - This is where things get murky. This just a rough summary you could do a book on this category as it's has some many different levels of quality and players (honest brands & shysters). Within this category it's mostly brands that have independent 3rd party watchers making their watches for them, the better micro brands will be using Swiss, German, and the better Chinese watchmakers while the crappier micro brands will be using the lower end Chinese watchmakers. Micro brands are the new kids (although some are not so new now, but there are new ones starting all the time) on the block lots of great micro brands, with some decent watches out there, but there is also quite a few with overpriced average to junk watches. Within this category you have brands like Christopher Ward, Boldr, Zelos and a host of other decent ones. Also in this category ou have the Solar Time Brands like Earnshaw, Duxot, CCCP, Nubeo here, the Resultco brands like, Heritor, Reign, Shield etc, the Fields crap with Swan & Edgar, Gamages etc.
Duchamp are in this category, a new micro brand, which have some decent watches, they made a good decision and chose a decent independent watchmaker, but then let themselves down badly by their marketing and pricing strategy, which is a real negative to watch collectors, they are basically pretending to be a luxury watch brand with Swiss heritage, neither of which they are/have, when it was just a couple of folks from woking who worked for a stockclearance and wholesale company and used their contacts to set up a watch brand. Collectors will buy a lot within this category but there is a vast amount that collectors wouldn't touch with a barge pole.
So if they are selling at around £600 for a watch at what sort of price is fair in order for a small profit margin?
That's too hard to answer as too many variables, it depends on so many variables (is the watch made by the brand or bought in, quality of materials, supply chain to retailor etc) from start to finish, depends if the £600 is a fair price or not, ie materials used, supply chain etc. A lot of watches could be sold at £600 figure but that doesn't mean they all cost the same to get to the market place. Sorry that's not a great answer but the answer would differ between watches and brands.
But what i will say is.
Usually when you hear of getting discounts on a watch RRPs, you're thinking along the lines of maybe 10-15%, maybe a bit more in a sale. But when a brand is offereng 85% discounts almost as standard from their RRP then that should be raising a f****** huge red flag into the brand and their watches.
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