The art of luxury watch making is very unforgiving to new ideas due to most luxury watchmakers being hundreds of years old with many able to trace their origins to the mid to late 1700’s.
The $31 billion (USD) global luxury watch segment is an market dominated by a select few Swiss, German, and Japanese watchmakers whose value is defined by the history and traditions that have survived throughout the centuries.
A businesses ability to adapt to changing fortunes is a fundamental necessity in surviving difficult times with luxury watchmaking having already experienced one of the most disruptive shifts in their industry to date. The invention and mass adoption of the quartz movement that destroyed many Swiss and German watchmakers in the 1970s.
Now luxury watchmakers are at a smilar cross roads again.
The traditional watch boutique sales model has come to a grinding halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is forcing watchmakers of all backgrounds to reassess methods of doing business that they had previously shunned.
In December of 2018 the president of Patek Philippe took part in an interview where he emphatically stated that whilst the internet is a useful tool to educate, it is not and will not be the right tool to every sell a Patek Philippe watch.
As of March 27 2020, Patek Philippe in partnership with British watch dealer Laings have listed 23 models as available to purchase online through Laings eCommerce platform in a specific response to the pandemic.
How times have changed.
Will we see this pandemic force other luxury watch brands to adapt or will we see a repeat of the quartz crisis of the 1970s that nearly destroyed the luxury watch industry.
Only time will tell.
Do you know of any brands that have had to rapidly adapt to COVID-19 and the challenges it brings?
Comment below!
Digital Era Today 
2 replies on “Luxury Horology – Adapting to Pandemic”
Hopefully by being pushed to adapt by a global pandemic these companies can actually see the value in an online market place and use this as an opportunity to embrace new customers and maybe even see sales growth in this new market!
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Totally agree. I think this pandemic has the potential to really shake up the norms that business and marketers are used to and may provide interesting opportunities for those firms who embrace this “new norm”. Great insight!
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