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The Business of Watches [030] Q&A Episode - Your Business Questions Answered By The Hodinkee Team

Published on Wed, 17 Jun 2026 15:00:00 +0000

How will 3D printing tech change watch movement manufacturing? Do watch brands consider enthusiasts when designing and setting release schedules? All this and more as your business questions are answered on this week's special episode.

Synopsis

This 30th episode of "The Business of Watches" podcast features a special Q&A format with host Andy Hsieh joined by Hodinkee editors James Stacey (Editor-in-Chief), Tan Tan Wong, and Mark Kauzlarich (Senior Editor). The discussion begins with Mark's observations on the recent auction market, particularly noting record-breaking sales for F.P. Journe pieces and the rising prominence of independent watchmakers like Kari Voutilainen, whose wait times now extend to seven years.

The team addresses several audience questions covering key industry topics. They explore whether 3D printing technology could democratize movement manufacturing, concluding that while the technology is evolving, the complexity of assembly, need for specialized components like hairsprings, and the already low cost of mass-produced movements make this unlikely in the near term. The discussion then shifts to release schedules, with the panel noting that enthusiast preferences often diverge from mass market demands—exemplified by the fact that watches without date windows and smaller sizes typically underperform in retail despite enthusiast preferences. Finally, they examine the trend toward mono-brand boutiques versus multi-brand retailers, observing that while high-end brands like A. Lange & Söhne and Audemars Piguet are moving toward corporate-owned boutiques for better customer control, this creates accessibility challenges for collectors in smaller markets and potentially alienates early adopters who built relationships through traditional authorized dealers.

Transcript

Speaker
Andy Hsieh Welcome to the business of watches. This week we have a special episode for our 30th episode. It is a QA episode, and that means we are going to take your questions that you sub'mitveted to us on various channels. And I am fortunate enough to be joined by my esteemed colleagues, James Stacey, the editor in chief of Hodinky. Welcome, James.
James Stacey Hey, how's it going? Happy to be here. And congrats on Thirty.
Andy Hsieh We've we've we've come a long way. Sure have. Tan Ten Wang, uh editor at Hodinki, joining us as well. Thank you, sir.
Mark Kauzlarich Hey Andy. Good to see ya. Good to see you, sir.
Andy Hsieh And Mark Koslerich, senior editor at Hodinke, who spent the weekend um following the watch auctions. Welcome, Mark.
Mark Kauzlarich Yeah, thanks so much. Wish I was wish I was selling and it would have been an extra great weekend.
Andy Hsieh You wrote a nice piece on that record Jorn. Where do you think we are in the uh auction market, Mark? Aaron
Tan Tan Wong Powell I think it's a really interesting
Mark Kauzlarich time, especially considering that everybody that is selling knows everybody that's buying and they're doing it publicly instead of amongst themselves as some of them used to do more often and I think they're just kind of feeding into each other's predilections a little bit, um buying and selling the things that they know that they want, but doing so publicly drives the market for other things. And uh I'm just kind of curious to see where it goes because I think you're starting to run out of the historically significant quote unquote things from FP Jorn and so maybe things shift to brands like Kari Voodalinen or even Debatune did quite well at Phillips over the weekend and surprise a lot of people. So we'll have to see where the market shifts because I don't Aaron
Andy Hsieh Powell Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what do you think there?
Mark Kauzlarich Yeah, I mean all all the watches that had Kari's name on it or had something to do with them went for over a million dollars. My understanding I'm I might be wrong, so I maybe I shouldn't say this, but I think that most of those watches came from a collector who is sort of prominent in the space who passed away and his family was taking care of uh deacquisitioning some of his watches, is my understanding, at least maybe for the masterpiece chronograph two, uh is what it seemed to be online. But yeah, good timing. I And also know that I have a friend that put in an order for Akari and it's somewhere around a seven-year wait now. So there are gonna be a number of people that have a lot of funds that don't want to wait and want to skip the line and maybe get something very significant. The other thing I'll call out too is the Marteau auction that's uh going on right now and it'll close soon. They have another unique Kari voodoo line in and last I checked the price was well over a million dollars for this repeater that he did. So it it's a good time to be a a Kari seller and good time to be Kari and and I guess same for Roger Smith. People are quite excited about his watches too.
James Stacey Makes sense, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's that it's a very specific genre of watchmingak..
Andy Hsieh Absolutely There's independence beyond uh Francois Paul Jaune, uh that's for sure. Um okay, let's take our first question. It comes from Ninja Hamster. And Ninja Hamster asks as 3D printing and modeling software improves, will we ever get to the point where movement manufacture is inexpensive enough to be democratized? Um so I guess this is a question of, you know, where are we in in sort of 3D printing technology and you know, at what point will it become easier for one and all to um make a watch movement and and will three D printing have a um uh a role in that? What when I think of 3D printing I think of James Stacy who is a um an enthusiast um certainly in the 3D printing world. What do you think, James?
James Stacey You know, I think I think there's m a few different layers to this question. One, I would say we aren't at the tech scope of three D printing, certainly not household three D printing, where you could print a movement, you know, with uh Barrel Hand's most recent watch, you have the ability to print that watch, but it's you know, it's like a blank that you could put a strap on and have an idea of its size and that sort of thing. And it's, you know, the idea is that it's part of a a collection of CAD possibilities that could help them evolve the watch through the community of people who need or love the watch or possibly both, depending on your ability to go to space in the future. I think more specifically, like the idea of m uh movement manufacture being democratized, you know, you're talking about printing in metal and you're still talking about the need to have uh a hairspring, you're still talking about the need to have a main spring, things that at least right now Granted, we are still in the the first generation of household printing, maybe one and a half generations, if you will. Uh so I do think that this is something where in the future a movement could be printed, conceivably it could be printed in place and have one or two pieces added to it. Um we aren't there in anything other than theoretical uh sort of three D printing. And then in terms of democratized, I don't know how cheap the movement would need to be considered for it to be democratized because a a modern inexpensive, you know, even entry level, whether it's a a Miyota eighty two fifteen or something from Salita. These are not movements that buy bulk numbers cost much money. So I don't know where that number would need to be where you went, This is so cheap, I could buy a machine and print a movement at home. And then lastly, and I don't want to be unfair to Ninja Hamster because this is a fun question from a guy with a fun name, I don't know that anybody wants to print a movement at home. Uh watch brands would want to print a movement. And I would argue, having seen, you know, the processes at like EMP in Switzerland, they kind of are printing a movement or milling a movement in various stages, but even a movement, very f very little of that i it comes from one place, right? The rubies have to come from somewhere, even if you're getting to that point.
Andy Hsieh Sure. And then the last thing I would say, and and
James Stacey Mark and Tantan, you should step all over me if you think I'm s I'm getting wrong on this, but like even if you could print the various elements, the main plates, a rotor, gearing, things like that, even if you could print those to the exceptional tolerances that even a standardized mechanical movement would require. I don't know that the bulk of the work is actually creating the part as much as it is putting everything together in a way that can keep time. Is that unfair, loosely fair, partway there?
Tan Tan Wong No, I think I think that's that's pretty spot on. Um yeah, like I think the from the sort of democratization standpoint, I am sort of interpreting this question more of like, oh, can can any micro are we just gonna basically see a lot of micro brands with their own in-house calibers, you know, 15 years down the line? Um and I think for I think I'm on the same page here where I agree where I think the by the nature of what defines the appeal of these brands, I think it's not necessarily necessary or there isn't that current appeal. You know, I just I just came back from visiting Casio in Japan where you're seeing minuscule gears being injection molded to a to a scale where it's where I actually didn't realize you could injection mold
James Stacey at. But you know, that is a way
Tan Tan Wong of making extremely inexpensive parts, but the thing is the cost is all in creating that injection mold, right? Which could, you know, could be a quarter of a million dollars each, um, you know, as a speculation. So so long story short, I agree here where you know, additive manufacturing right now, at least in the watch space, is so much around exploring what can't be done. I think from you know, mostly right now from an aesthetic point of view. You obviously have exceptions where you know Ming's poly mesh bracelet is something that is not only an aesthetic
James Stacey I've watched ultra. It's it's super,
Tan Tan Wong super interesting and and just there's nothing like it. Um but right now I think it is exploring things where you can't, you know, creating things that you can't just CNC or injection mold, um, especially structurally. Yeah. So long story short, maybe we'll see this change in many years. But, you know, to me, injection molding and, you know, metal injection molding is getting to be a process that more and more brands are using uh to create parts. I think we're gonna see more of that and not necessarily sort of 3D printing as a as a technique.
Andy Hsieh Mark, any thoughts? Yeah, I think
Mark Kauzlarich you know one of the things you have to keep in mind is as much as we'd like to see massive leaps and bounds and improvement and and the underlying part of the democratization thing, I think it has something to do with the fact that people just would like watches to be more affordable in general. And I think you'd there are affordable options, but yeah, it would be great if everything, if if Pateks were more affordable, because the they had, you know,
James Stacey solved some sort of the process. But
Mark Kauzlarich I hate to say it. I know there's things that will be improved in the next, 10 20 years. But I think there's a big part of this that's like a lot of watchmaking is a a sort of a solved thing already. You know, the ideal gear ratios for things for a three-hand watch and and chronographs are really hard to design because the best chronograph designs have largely been done already. And so where do you shave off a little bit of a margin to get people a more democratically accessible watch. I don't know that it's 3D printing. And I don't know that's where the bulk of the cost, like James said, comes from. I think it's it's other parts of the process. Because
James Stacey I guess in in some ways the closest we as a species have come to this would be the system fifty one.
Tan Tan Wong Yeah. Swatch. You know, in that it's it's
James Stacey not additively produced, but it is it is built with no human interaction.
Tan Tan Wong Yeah. Um which I guess we at least puts
James Stacey it in the same genre as something that's kind of in in a way it's printed in place. It's not, of course, but like it comes together in that sort of uh without a human assembly. But yeah, I don't know I don't know how many generations away we could be and and you know nobody really has a scope on like what gen like real qualified next generation AI could do to 3D
Tan Tan Wong printing. Yeah. And the understandings of
James Stacey these things. So I would say uh it's possible that it's not it's not here yet. And I don't know necessarily what the market would be for hobbyists. Amazing, right? When they eventually get to the point where you could um download a file to print uh and they are to a certain set here, but like massly print a metal part for say a vehicle that you were servicing, that will be a big sort of leap forward in the consumer side of this. You could go to your auto parts store and they would print the piece that you wanted rather than having it shipped around and all that kind of thing. Who knows? Um but yeah, maybe maybe there is a world in which that's that's something that outcomes. My guess is that we'll see more and more brands go down the same route as um Girard Perigo and Tag Hoyer and and consistently uh develop structures within movements that use specific materials for their purpose. Um and the more materials you put into a tiny thing, the less likely it will three D print really well, right? As you'd be switching mediums throughout. But there's a world in which base plates, sure, why not? Right? Rotors, yeah. Maybe even gears.
Andy Hsieh Yeah. Don't see why not. If you've if you've held the Ming
James Stacey bracelet, wouldn't surprise me if you could three D center titanium gearing. So
Andy Hsieh For sure, for sure. But it is important to note that especially when we're talking about the micro brands, indeed that access to the movement at wholesale costs is is really not your biggest cost center there. And um uh if there's an issue for the micro brands, it's it's um having access to those things um at the smaller scale.
James Stacey Yeah, where the minimum orders might be too big.
Andy Hsieh Exactly. And then it the for just for those who are
James Stacey bored, go on Perrin, go on Esslinger and see what a movement costs if you buy one.
Andy Hsieh Yeah. Just some of them aren't that much. You know, the
James Stacey the movement in that DWC Terra I spoke about and have written about, I think I if you had to replace just one of them, it was like eight bucks.
Andy Hsieh Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. If
James Stacey you're making five thousand of those, it's not going to be eight dollars a mov
Andy Hsieh Indeed. Cool question. All right. Let's move on to our next question. This is from Kyle Cind DC. And they ask, are brands trying to keep up with the breakneck pace of new releases demanded by enthusiasts and social media, or are they still keeping to their own release schedule and hoping things level off? How much weight do brands give enthusiasts when making design and release choices? Aaron Powell
Mark Kauzlarich I can jump in. I think one of the things that I try to keep in mind too and and I encourage people when they're reading about watches online or or thinking about watches or thinking about the things that they wish that w were being launched is like yeah. Um some brands have and even will admit that they sort of overdid it on terms of release schedules and and things. I think Grand Seiko has really tried to pair back their releases just generally in terms of number, but also the the pace that they're doing it at. But then you compare it to something like Citizen, I mean there',s a lot of stuff that Citizen makes that we just don't cover. There's things that are more for a broader commercial audience. I mean, there's been collaborations with cartoon characters and stuff that like we all love, peanuts, and we've seen them on in a variety of, you know, Snoopy watches and stuff like that. But uh the you know, uh an anime watch or something like that that is not gonna be something that we cover. And so what we're seeing is is two things. One, we're only seeing a portion of the world of what releases are. And two, we're also only a fraction of the market. And so it's hard for me sometimes when I look at release schedules or So w how how how they choose to release things and and what timeline, how frequent, how close to watches and wonders are after. It's uh it's it's it's hard to say if they're doing it right or wrong. Sometimes it's overwhelming for us, but it's hard to say that they're doing it wrong. It it might work perfectly for them.
Tan Tan Wong Yeah. I think sometimes people forget the sheer scale that many of these brands demand. You know, when we talk about a lot of the brands that, you know, have releases that debut at Watches and Wonders. We're talking production, you know, for the the horology, it's like, you know, 60,000 pieces a year or something like that. But for, you know, the mass market brands, we're talking like Citizen Timex. I think yes, we as enthusiasts love to talk about this stuff, but sometimes I think we also forget that you know these brands have such a huge customer base in, for example, department stores, right? So um their release cycles are often actually around a fashion calendar, right? That was something when I was a buyer, like something that we had to actually deal with. And it was a challenge because we think about shaping launches around moments, right? Okay, like this is gonna be a big thing, let's tell a story about that. But you know, Timex at the scale that they need to produce things just have spring summer and they launch everything at once. Right. So I think we forget sometimes how big this customer base is. And you know, again, the thing I always like to remind people is, you know, while a lot of enthusiast brands that we talk about, yes, you have to think about enthusiasts when making design and and release choices, but my favorite example is you know what we actually kind of struggled with selling is actually watches without a date window. I think that's like the biggest thing in my mind that, you know, shows sort of this kind of cognitive dissonance where anytime you would ask people why they were not buying new releases, it's they were like, there's no date window. You know, it's something that, you know, I I I just need a date window on my watch. And so and you know oftentimes you would hear, oh, this is actually too small. You know, so I I think again it's it's realizing that w like, you know, I I speak on behalf of the watch nerds where oftentimes there's a very you know homogeneous point of view. Um but again we are you know we are not one hive mind and there's so many points of view to consider. And you know I think at the end of the day, the point of view that wins it's the one that sells the most watches, right? And that's not always the enthusiasts.
Mark Kauzlarich And if I can just jump back in real quick on the date window thing, because this is one of my favorite examples to pull out and it shows that like what enthusiasts want, whether it's in the product or the product release schedule or whatever. I went to a couple of years ago the relaunch of the Brigade type twenty and uh we saw what was coming and I knew that it was going to be two watches with the date window. And they previously had one with and one without and all I could think is you know, why why do they do it this way again? And I talked to somebody who is a retailer who sells a lot of brigade, and then I also talked to the team at Briget, but the retailer said nobody at that price point is walking in off the street and going to buy a watch without a date window, never having considered this watch before. But there are people with $25,000 to spend that will walk in off the street, fall in love with a watch that they didn't expect to look at and just snap by a watch and the date window is a make or break thing. People are just not gonna buy that watch without a date window. And I think it's like, okay, an enthusiast would say, no, you're completely wrong. But how many of the people that are buying are actually enthusiasts? So
Andy Hsieh Yeah. Yeah. James, any thoughts?
James Stacey Yeah. Just on on the first part, I would just say, you know, with the breakneck pace, uh, I think we're seeing a little bit of whiplash from the a scenario of spending that just disappeared in the last couple years. What what came up in the 21, 2021, 22 range? We saw it in cars, you saw it in art, you saw it in collectibles of all sorts. And a lot of those markets remain elevated to some extent, especially in the consumer mind or in the enthusiast mind. But like a lot of these brands, I think they suddenly saw a windfall and you know you it does take some time to spin up another watch. E ifven you're a small brand, it might take months. And if you're a big brand and you have a lot more checks and balances and and a longer product cycle, I think we might still be seeing a speed that that references a market that's kind of dried in some respects or reshaped itself um back to reality over the last few years. Again, speaking more in into the enthusiast space, um the generalist space, I I think there's you you just make if you're a big brand, you make a lot of SKUs. And that's why you know you'll see enthusiasts go, Oh, why would they make this watch at forty five millimeters? It should be forty. And you go, Well, they're making them at forty five because they're selling 'em.
Andy Hsieh Yep. Right? And uh and uh
James Stacey even even a really big brand, you might you might have a stinker or like something that doesn't sell that well, but you wouldn't keep doing it, right? The goal of the brand would be to make money. So that's that's the only thing that would kind of kind of hit me is I think that the pace has been largely high, and the because there was this big spike in attention and spending a few years ago. Um, and I think we're still seeing the kind of knock-on effect from from that from a product standpoint, where we people with credit cards and time to read about watches and that sort of thing can react quite quickly in and out of a buying mood. The product can take some time to reflect that.
Tan Tan Wong from my perspective, I see a lot of this sort of continuing of of the the sort of rate that James is mentioning. Um as also a result that a lot of the brands that we're thinking of are, you know, part of conglomerates that are publicly traded and, you know when when things come to be publicly traded. You can't go down, right? You can only it only goes up, right? That's uh that's how we think. So I'm curious
Andy Hsieh You have to show some growth. Exactly. So you know the
Tan Tan Wong the quest of infinite growth from anything that's publicly traded at this point. Um Andy, I'm curious if you agree or disagree that that's something that we're seeing or or, you know, at least somewhat uh a cause. Aaron Powell
Andy Hsieh Yeah. I mean I think I think it's it it kind of fits into um some of the questions we've already had and that there is this you know difference between you know the true enthusiast market and the mass market. And you know, the mass market is sometimes looking for something new. Like I mean, like we said, you know, if you put the right cartoon character on a watch, for some people they they need to buy that watch and and it's because of their affinity for that um for that character or that idea as opposed to the watch itself. And and you know, I think the watch industry as it is structured at the moment can't exist solely on on uh the enthusiast community and I can't cater simply to the enthusiast community, although there is no doubt that, you know, the enthusiast community, the education and the understanding of watches has certainly, you know, improved, gotten larger, um, all those things. But indeed, you know, it is difficult for a publicly traded company to say, look, you know, we decided to cut production and just, you know, cut the number of SKUs we're doing here and we're just in order to sort of, you know, meet where we are in the market. And and remember, yeah, these are industrial processes, they take time, etc but at the same time you know what the move has been has been to you know slowly reduce production and increase prices and and obviously, you know inf,lation in terms of input costs here in Switzerland is is a real thing. Um labor is uh among the most expensive in the world. Obviously we've seen the Swiss franc continue to appreciate against the US dollar and other currencies. So that you know makes watches more expensive. And indeed, you know, that gets us to this concern that many have that watches have sort of priced themselves out of the market for a certain segment of the market. But but indeed, it's very difficult for these established larger size, you know, what we'd call volume brands to pair things back when at the end of the day they have to um answer to shareholders, and that means you know, increasing sales. And there's only a few ways to do that.
James Stacey It's also the scenario that if you combine the internet and digital photography and uh the growth of um of hobbyist and enthusiast press is what created the micro brands in the Indies.
Andy Hsieh Mm-hmm. Right? Is this sort of disconnection
James Stacey between mass market brands and their most ardent uh collectors or the most ardent interested parties, collectors or otherwise. You know, and the niche became for some people an, eight hundred dollar dive watch that was the right size with the right movement and bought from a guy whose first name you knew and you could probably see him in a local city all the way up to kind of the same idea, but a Jorn, Akari, you know, take it taking us back to to what Mark was talking about earlier, everything's kind of a response to something else, like every genre of music feeds off of the one that was popular before it and it kind of works that way in in watches as well. So good question though. Fun one.
Mark Kauzlarich The last thing I'll say about this too is th there's two analogies you could think of. It's first, like you're moving an oil tanker in the the sea, it's gonna take a long time to to change course with some of these brands. And so the nice thing about an indie or a Jorn who until this year I think made one new movement design for every year for the last twenty plus years, you can just adapt. If you if something's not working or your clients want something, you can adapt more quickly. And the other the other analogy too is you're what you're looking at is it's kind of like trying to pull a a a tractor trailer using a rubber band is if you if you lay on the brakes real hard because you see that the market is shifting, well the trailer behind you is not gonna stop because it's gonna it's gonna rebound and it's gonna take a while to to catch up to whatever your plan is. And so if you feel like things aren't right, whether it's release schedules or prices or whatever, I think you're going to see some changes have to occur. It's just that they might be slower or the larger the brand is.
Andy Hsieh Yeah. I mean I can remember uh Sir Vignon when he is was the CEO of Cartier espousing the brand's ability to be able to adjust production for models that were more popular than others, that saying that this is a unique or new attribute um that they developed in their production process and and that the you know this was a good thing. Cartier part of Richemont, uh the biggest selling brand, uh watch brand at Richemont, uh a publicly traded company. So our next question, we'll move on, uh, is from Bobby G and they ask, Where do you see the trend going in mono brand boutiques versus multibrand boutiques? Do we think it will be a K-shaped approach? So So K-shaped meeting one end going up, the other end going down, high end wanting to control the narrative, and the lower end needing to be in as many spaces as possible to generate sales. You know, it is this, you know, continuous interesting sort of element of the watch industry as opposed to many others, and that, you know, in boutiques, in-person experiences are still um pretty critical for selling watches. What do we think?
Mark Kauzlarich This seems to go hand in hand with the the previous question in a way, is uh certain brands are going to want more control over these things and so they can adapt more quickly and and you see um for I I won't say who because uh it was more on background, but I spoke to a brand that's, you know, adjusted the number of boutiques that they've had in the United States uh overall and and had some shifts in leadership and um one of the things that they were very cognizant of is m saying to their boutiques, no, we're not gonna give you more of certain watches until you sell through what you've been sitting on and it allows them to sort of motivate their own sales staff to make sure that uh watches aren't sitting around a long time to the advantage of other models. So I think like, yeah, at a at a very high end that makes sense. Now, of course, then that ends up being frustrating to the the buyers at the high end because they walk into a boutique and say, I want X model and it's the hot model and then they can't get it. And um I mean there's a lot of factors at play in that, but I think you're seeing it more on the high end, and I don't think we're gonna we're gonna lose that because it is such a beneficial tool for them and at the same time, unfortunately a frustrating thing for the clients.
Tan Tan Wong Yeah. I mean, even at a point where we're seeing sort of reactionary sort of decrease in in spending across the board, when we're talking about a lot of these ultra-high-end mono brand boutiques, they are still very much weathering the storm, so to speak. And, you know, a lot of these brands just don't produce enough, right? They don't produce enough out of, you know, necessity, but also, you know, just you know, for example, Langa is a great example where they made a huge move to kind of move to corporate only boutiques. And of course there are exceptions these days, right? There are still some partner boutiques with retailers across the board and around the world. But you know, when you make 5,500 watches, you you didn't have enough to begin with, um, at least at least from from what we're what we're seeing. And so, you know, when you actually can control the the sort of customer base in this way, I think a lot of a lot of times it is also good for uh I it's actually kind of hard to say, right? Like on on one hand, it's great, I think it's better for clients because if if you do actually establish a relationship with a brand, I think it rewards you down the line. But at the same time, that also means that a lot of people, you know, have single-handedly complained, oh, when things move from mono uh
Andy Hsieh multi, from multi-brand boutiques to to
Tan Tan Wong mono, you you just lose everything. You lose all your history, you lose everything that you did, especially when brands weren't as popular, right? So in in effect you're losing the early adopters and brands were actually pushing them out of the way in in in sort of replacement for new blood. But again, when you go to a mono brand boutique, I don't know, it's it's kind of hard to imagine you ever going back, right? Like is I don't think there's a precedent to, you know, brands being like, oops, I guess this doesn't work. Let's go back to sort of multi-brand retailers in a way, or you know is there?
Andy Hsieh Yeah. I mean I think, you know, obviously y as you mentioned, Longa is certainly that's that's been the move and AP uh Odemar PG has done the same thing. But I think, you know, we're starting to see as the market turns a bit, it's a bit harder for even for these brands to sell watches. We are seeing it just the pendulum swing back a little bit in terms of brands being more open to being in multi-brand boutiques. And you know, these brands, even if you're Longa, even if you're Otomar PK, you do have to get in front of new customers in one way or the other. And uh you know, we've seen consolidation happening on the multi-brand side, obviously in certain markets. So there are, you know l,ess players in that space. Watches of Switzerland, the owner parent company of Hodiki certainly being one of them in the US. But I think, you know, for brands that can afford to do it, it obviously makes sense. They get to know their customer better, they can can control and have oversight over things much better. But, you know, look, the biggest of them all, Rolex, you know, continues even though they own Boucher and Tourneau now, but I mean they continue to work with primarily outside retailers. James, did you have any thoughts on on the retail side?
James Stacey I mean I think you guys really covered it here. The the only thing that hits me is is you know, I have a big fondness for brands that are internet born and raised um that sell online and the thing that has changed since the early days of PRS dreadnoughts and uh and like you know, the Ocean Sevens and Bernhardts and and that sort of stuff is the show circuit that is available to a one man brand. The wind ups, the Toronto system, Intersect, uh you know at this point if we listed the shows we would we would actually run out of time. There's so many. And I have very frequent conversations because this is a part of the world I still love the watch world I really love. You know, sub $5,000 watches made by two or three people who are good at CAD and have done the work to put all their suppliers together. And um and the challenge is there is always what which one do I go to, right? 'Cause you you you want to be able to sell online and if you're successful your watches will sell, but the human element seems it seems to we see yeah, that pendulum seems to have swung where what maybe when I was first, you know, two thousand six, two thousand seven, two thousand eight on Watchy Seek and you go like the point of it was I bought this from this guy Mitch in Florida. Shout out to Ocean Seven, right? And I didn't meet Mitch. I didn't go into a store. I don't want to be unfair, so I won't name the brand necessarily, but you know, we there were even very early micro brands that made the leap to retail and it wiped out their business. Um, because those DTC margins didn't exist when they had to share with a store. And now you kinda give the shows the option where a brand can show up to one or two of these shows a year or maybe more in their market, not British Watchmakers Day seems to be a great example of let's get as many of these guys in a room to sit with the people who actually are on their websites all the time. Um and you know, you we had Richard on from Studio Underdog just recently, great example of a guy who's really figured out that mix of real world presence and the ability to sell uh easily and simply and quickly and all that kind of stuff. And I think that's the maybe the third, the ancillary orbiting element around those two options of multi-brand stores or singular stores are, you know, the goal being somebody s comes in and is, you know, has their your watch on their wrist. And I think the show circuits have become a really important part of that for probably brands up to what I guess Aurus maybe. That sort of thing.
Mark Kauzlarich Yeah. And I the the other thing that
James Stacey I I don't want to discount the the frustration
Mark Kauzlarich that people have, especially I mean getting the watches you want is uh for a lot of these brands is gonna be hard either way, and I don't want to discount that. I also don't want to discount the uh the idea that, you know, spend history at some of these boutiques uh uh going out the window. Um you know, for some some of these places that have moved completely boutique only instead of ADs, like they'll just they don't care that unless you spent the money through them, it doesn't really count, which is frustrating, but the the main frustration that I think I hear from a lot of people too is if you live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and you wanna get an AP, you know, and or you wanna get a Patek, I mean Patek, for instance, pull the their for at its that one time, Rumley's Jewelers in Green Bay, Wisconsin was their oldest independent retailer in the world. And they retailed basically only Rolex, Patech, uh Tag Hoyer, Cartier, and and Tudor and Patek pulled out. Well, what happens if you're living in Green Bay, Milwaukee, Wausau, one of these places that you maybe do have a long history with Patek, but now it's gone. So I think that is that is to me the biggest uh tragedy for a lot of people that really care about stuff and have long histories is that you you lose that and you lose access to be able to walk in and try something on. Um it's it's a bummer, but uh unfortunately that's the way that it's going. And you see, especially at these high for these high net worth individuals, it unfortunately is probably easier for them to travel than most people, so they can go to New York and try something on it a along boutique.
Andy Hsieh Trevor Burrus No, that makes total sense. Yeah. I mean it works at the high end and you know to exclude those less uh concentrated, those those urban areas that can still work with the business model. But indeed in pla you know, more rural places it makes it very difficult to see those watches in person. Well look gentlemen, it's been uh almost forty minutes and so um thank you for joining us excellent to have your insights on these sort of business related questions on the business of watches and I uh we appreciate it and we'll uh speak to you soon.
James Stacey Absolutely. Let's do another one at forty. We can even save some of these questions or we can do it again. We grabbed them off of Instagram and a couple other spots. But this was uh this was fun. Thanks for uh thanks for the including.
Andy Hsieh Hashtag road to forty. So it'll
James Stacey be it'll be here in no time. It'll still be warm outside.
Andy Hsieh And that's the business of watches for this episode. We hope you enjoyed. Please head on over to hodinky.com where you can join the discussion and leave any comments or questions about this episode or the business of watches in general. Who knows? We might even answer your question on a future episode. Thanks for listening and see you next time.