Watches Market Report

Watch Industry News

Fine luxury watches are a key product category for jewelry retailers. Jewelers often carry up to seven watch brands to cater to various tastes and strata of their clientele. To make intelligent choices on which brands to carry, jewelers must have a solid understanding of the watch market, especially the landscape of brands available, their new products, all being at various price levels. The swiss watch industry has always been recognized as a leader in providing watches that are highly prized by watch consumers and celebrities, both at the general and connoisseur levels. Especially significant among these are mechanical watches, fine technical instruments that operate with purely mechanical components. These are most often driven by a fine mechanical spring and can include various "complications" when created by masters with the ultimate expertise. Big players in this market include the well-known companies like Rolex and Swatch, which own and manufacture a wide range of individual brands. Swatch historically has also produced mechanical movements for many other non-Swatch Swiss brands that need these precision components to claim the coveted “Swiss-made” imprimatur. Most recently, however, Swatch announced that it will begin tapering off movements sales to competitors, a strategic move that has been upheld by Swiss courts. This could well pose severe difficulties for brands that have relied on these movements in the past, and jewelers need to be award of possible product shortages that could eventuate in the near future. National Jeweler monitors the Swiss watch industry and the overall industry to inform our readers of developments such as these as well as critical developments such as which watch brands are seeking to expand or restrict distribution. This is often of significant importance to individual jewelers as many watch brands limit distribution by offering clients exclusivity in their local markets. Because the watch brands promote themselves through advertising, watches can often serve as an important traffic-driver for retailers, bringing customers into the store where they can be shown additional merchandise for upselling or capturing sales with greater margins.