cazalea
[Seiko Moderator]
17373
Mis-timing the luxury watch market
This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal today, discussing how a company could get ahead of itself and the market, and be caught with too much inventory when the music stopped (if you remember the game Musical Chairs)
There's plenty more to this WSJ article but this gives you the gist of what's happening.
The remainder is full of explanations of why what they were doing made sense to them, and how deep the hole is that they dug themselves into.
Cazalea
Mis-timing the luxury watch market
This article appeared in the Wall Street Journal today, discussing how a company could get ahead of itself and the market, and be caught with too much inventory when the music stopped (if you remember the game Musical Chairs) There's plenty more to this W...
Lots of excellent comments on NYT site.
Someone smartly sold near/at the top. It's how BUSINESS is done. We all already all know about the trajectory of 'content' on that site. Plus it surely must have been great fun to ' get high on your own supply '. But we all know how that ends, just ask To...
I love Hodinkee. I’ve been a reader from the beginning and actually met several ppl who worked there.
Their profile is similar to many other watch dealers. I know ppl in various places in the industry that bought and waited for watches to peak. Now that prices are sliding they can’t unload. Timing is everything.
This is a tough year overall for consumer...
I am focused on DTC/DNVB consumer specifically, and most of our portfolio companies are not doing well this year. It's odd since 2022 wasn't bad, neither was 2023 for us, but 2024 is extremely tough. My guess is that things won't really improve until inte...
Exactly this!
Fed announced all over that they were going to raise the rates, if you can’t understand what that will do to the luxury market maybe you shouldn’t be running a 100 mil $ business. I wish them well however after this article no investor would touch them ev...
Reminds me of a situation when I was in the car finance business
In the UK the Chancellor announced that they were raising the rates and also fuel taxes -- almost immediately the resale value of all the big cars tumbled
NYT published an article about the troubles of one of the specialized lenders to DTC today.
Similar stories all across the private credit space I assume. Bringing this back to watches, it did puzzle me the last year or so as to why folks like this weren’t hurting more obviously. I assumed they all had debt and they all bought into the rising pri...
They can reintroduce their Hodinkee 8 day travel clock
and all financial problems are gone Jokes aside I hope they survive. I do however miss the old days when they were less commercial but nevertheless, good luck to all of them !!!
2024 is a tough year for everybody I know. Restaurants, cafés have much less clients than past years, watches sales ( and prices ) are going down, despite what they say to justify their price increases...
So, it is not illogical that the Kiki does not well... Even if I don't like them, I wish them the best, because behind a company, there are men and their work and lives...
I was banned from Ho...
...for having the temerity to point out that sites relying on advertising from manufacturers cannot be relied upon for unbiased reviews.
It's always fascinating to see how quickly that line is crossed
Ben Cylmer was a hobbyist, but once your hobby becomes a business - it's destined to suffer from all of the same calamities as any other business
I'd never been on the site until this week
I'm not one to patronize "the competition" even though we don't really compete directly, it's still the same eyeballs we are hoping to attract (if not the associated wallets)
Interestingly I never thought this place and that in competition for eyeballs.
I think anyone finding themselves to this site, and being interested in what’s here, is far more broadly informed that 99% of their audience. And with that would mean they are most likely not fulfilled with their content. I’ve read them since the beginnin...
I met a few of the H guys at another event
We talked shop a bit, as one does, and talked about other sites, like TimeZone. But their NYC vibe didn't resonate with me, so never followed up. Mike
I think that they thought it was a never ending rise
History should help, or at least economic cycles.
Ten years ago it was relevant.
Once Jack Forster left I noticed a change in direction. I’ve always wondered what caused him to leave. IMO sales and celebrity became more important than content. I hope it weathers the storm.
There was imo never a reason to run
2 years ago it was a time to sit back and don’t buy the hyped pieces, others were still worth looking at Today is imo a buyers market… once again.. still not the Nautilus, Royal Oak and sport ROLEXYES But there are some real bargains in todays market
Everything I hate
About watch collecting and pretentious brand snobs rolled into one place.
That made me laugh. 😂
Is it OK to like two of those three? Or should I be burned at the stake?
?
I’ve only seen there watch stuff so I can’t say I have an opinion on anything else they do.
