Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by exHowfener »

If some of the luxury watch brands had consistent sales
But don't most of the luxury brands sell through AD's? So they don't need to soil their hands with discounts, they have people to do that for them. And they get their price whatever the AD sells it for.

I've wondered myself about how the discount vouchers affect the perception of the brand, in fact I asked that question at the Manchester GTG. I think the forum is giving me the answer!
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Dreadful things. I think if they issued a £100 voucher at the same time as releasing a new watch I wanted, I would be very tempted to decline the discount on principle. :lol:
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Pianomanmark »

TheBeatles wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:58 pm
Viognier wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:31 pm
Pianomanmark wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:27 pm Only in the watch community would someone complain about the frequency of being able to save money and have it put them off purchasing from a brand.

If I tried to explain this to anyone in the 'real' world, I would be met by a baffled look.
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I disagree, some companies have unlimited last minute sales and it certainly puts me off. For me, it always smacks of being overpriced to start with, in order to accommodate a “saving” at a later date.

I’d love to meet someone who has actually bought a DFS sofa at full price. Because I have some chocolate fireguards I'm not using. It’s not always about saving money, it can also cheapen the brand. Which I think is what Richard D may have meant.
If some of the luxury watch brands had consistent sales, that would put off a lot of folk. It’s the absence of regular sales that makes them luxury.

I think you’re being a little disingenuous by your “real” world scenario.
I'm not sure if your use of disingenuous is correct, I am being completely sincere.

You show me someone who would actually refuse a luxury watch if it were on sale and I'll show you a fool.

Show me someone who complains about the fact they have sales and then buys watches in their sales and I'll show you a hypocrite.
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

TheBeatles wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:58 pm It’s not always about saving money, it can also cheapen the brand. Which I think is what Richard D may have meant...

If some of the luxury watch brands had consistent sales, that would put off a lot of folk. It’s the absence of regular sales that makes them luxury.
I'm trying to think what the opposite of of that forum-favourite verb "cheapen" would be in this context. :-k
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Will_75 »

Amor Vincit Omnia wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:11 pm
TheBeatles wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:58 pm It’s not always about saving money, it can also cheapen the brand. Which I think is what Richard D may have meant...

If some of the luxury watch brands had consistent sales, that would put off a lot of folk. It’s the absence of regular sales that makes them luxury.
I'm trying to think what the opposite of of that forum-favourite verb "cheapen" would be in this context. :-k
I have an app on my phone for work expenses called “Expensify”. Maybe you could adopt that as a new verb?
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Will_75 wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:15 pm “Expensify”. Maybe you could adopt that as a new verb?
I like it. Can you think of a watch brand it could apply to? :-k
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Molan »

exHowfener wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 4:09 pm
If some of the luxury watch brands had consistent sales
But don't most of the luxury brands sell through AD's? So they don't need to soil their hands with discounts, they have people to do that for them. And they get their price whatever the AD sells it for.
I think this is the nub of the debate here. In virtually every product market available there are discounts to be had on initial list pricing. Very, very few brands are able to maintain 100% full price / zero discount pricing policies and these are usually very high end, low volume, high margin brands.

Personally I only know of three broad retail markets where a discount is almost always available in one form or another (as in 'free' stuff with a tangible value instead of a price reduction): Automotive, musical instruments & watches. I'm sure there are lots more but these three are among the most obvious.

Walk into a large shopping centre and ask for a discount at the till in most shops and they'll look at you like you're crazy. Find yourself a jeweler or watch dealer and it's totally 'normal'. There's almost always something they can knock off in the store. Guitar shops are identical - having run one for several years I'm happy to say that virtually no-one buys a new/used instrument without asking for a discount or a free set of strings, strap, case etc.etc.

The difference with CW is that they don't have these ADs to negotiate on a case by case basis or to, conveniently, discover that something can be discounted by 10% as ex-display.

Therefore all CW are doing is carrying on the same pricing and discount policy as the bricks & mortar high street retailers. In the modern world everyone expects a bargain and some sort of discount. CW are completely upfront and honest about making them available on a regular basis.

It's clear from other brands that this is a necessary 'evil' to be successful. Look at Trubus as the latest example. They launched with a 10% discount to everyone and then said they'd never offer price reductions - only loyalty rewards. To get those rewards all you have to do is log in to their site once a week & they'll give you an increasing discount. They just call it something else as a marketing ploy. Interesting to see that it's already failed them and they are having to offer 25% off their flagship pieces almost as soon as they are available to purchase.

To say a brand has devalued itself by offering fair prices to their customers seems entirely counter-intuitive to me.

Maybe the people who think this are regular visitors to Harry Enfield's 'I Saw You Coming' store in Notting Hill. . .

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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by TheBeatles »

Pianomanmark wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:04 pm
You show me someone who would actually refuse a luxury watch if it were on sale and I'll show you a fool.

Show me someone who complains about the fact they have sales and then buys watches in their sales and I'll show you a hypocrite.
Really, calling someone a fool because they refuse a luxury watch on sale😂, By the way! There a Vacheron Constantin reduced from £23,200 to £18,600 at Goldsmiths. Let me know what’s it’s like when it arrives!!

I think you’ve totally missed the point on calling someone a hypocrite.

Perhaps disingenuous was the wrong word, at least I’ll concede that point
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by nbg »

Pianomanmark wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:04 pm You show me someone who would actually refuse a luxury watch if it were on sale and I'll show you a fool.

Show me someone who complains about the fact they have sales and then buys watches in their sales and I'll show you a hypocrite.
Well I have always liked the expression -“a fool and his money are easily parted”. I reckon that can sometimes be correctly applied to someone who buys a luxury watch in a sale; just because it’s priced at a discount in a sale.

At the end of the day the RRP of a product can be a bit random and bear no relationship to what perspective customers think the item is worth. Getting a discount, even a sizeable one, doesn’t turn something into a bargain. It just means it is now an acceptable price on the value scale for that customer.

This is not a CW specific comment. The discount that I require to buy a CW watch (to reduce it to a figure, that for me, represents value for money as a watch in my collection) is no larger than I would need to be tempted to buy watches from some other more well known brands. Well in some instances it would be less... :)

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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

Interesting discussion.

I agree with Neil's point - a bargain is only really a bargain if it's something you wanted anyway. Whether it's a CW at £800 or a V-C at £18,000 - buy it because you want it (and in the latter case, I suspect, can afford it).

However, I think Mark's charge of hypocrisy is a fair one - levelled at those who "might possibly" accuse a company like CW of cheapening the brand through a proliferation of sales - BUT ONLY IF they themselves were to buy or have bought from the said sales.
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Pianomanmark »

TheBeatles wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:58 pm
Pianomanmark wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 5:04 pm
You show me someone who would actually refuse a luxury watch if it were on sale and I'll show you a fool.

Show me someone who complains about the fact they have sales and then buys watches in their sales and I'll show you a hypocrite.
Really, calling someone a fool because they refuse a luxury watch on sale😂, By the way! There a Vacheron Constantin reduced from £23,200 to £18,600 at Goldsmiths. Let me know what’s it’s like when it arrives!!

I think you’ve totally missed the point on calling someone a hypocrite.

Perhaps disingenuous was the wrong word, at least I’ll concede that point
I think you maybe missed my point slightly, let me clarify.

Find me someone who wants a particular watch but then isn't interested because the brand has frequent sales and I'll show you a fool. Does that make more sense? Im not saying buy a watch just because it's on sale, that would be idiotic.
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Renton »

Pianomanmark wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:27 pm Only in the watch community would someone complain about the frequency of being able to save money and have it put them off purchasing from a brand.

If I tried to explain this to anyone in the 'real' world, I would be met by a baffled look.
:lol: :clap: :clap:
Richard D wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:22 am ...these endless sales and discounts have put me off from ever buying a CW at full price.
As far as I can tell, CW's business model isn't to sell every watch strictly at RRP like some mistakenly assume. CW encourage customers to buy additional watches, usually at discounted prices, by doing a great job of keeping us updated with news of new releases and latest offers... "thanks for becoming a customer, now become a collector with a discount on this new model" if you will.
Richard D wrote: Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:22 am In fact, I would say they have become the DFS of the watch community.
DFS: Perpetual half price sales, 24x7x365. Even 'new' products are launched with bogus "launch price £700, save £900" BS offers. I certainly don't see anything like that from CW.

Yes, CW has half-price sales, but the watches are available for between a few seconds per year for something popular and maybe few days per year for less popular models?

And yes, CW does have a regular stream of 10-15% off this, £100 off that and occasional batches of NN watch offers popping up, but aren't those kind of offers in keeping with virtually every online retailer on the planet?

That's my little evening rant done! I'll head back under my stone and open a cold one now!
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

Back on topic :wink: :wink:

It looks like, if you didn't partake of the Nearly New watches on offer yesterday or today, up to this afternoon, you've had your lot; as the 'Nearly New' page has gone from CW's website.

Oh well; hopefully my Bumble Beast will be dispatched early next week. :) :)

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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Amor Vincit Omnia »

^^^Hope you get a buzz from it.
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Re: Nearly New Items for Sale again (25Mar2021)

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

^^^^ :lol: :lol:

I'm sure I will Steve.

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