I was wondering why canal street reps are more common. Is it just because of the price? I have seen reps in the wild, mostly Rolex and one or Two Panerai and Brietling, but they were all horrible quality and anyone could have easily seen they were reps. Yet our dealers sell higher quality reps, I'm sure they sell in large quantities, so where are they? The majority of the public still has an opinion that reps are crappy canal street quality with "Folex" printed on the dial, and some have an idea that AAA+++ grade perfect Rolex reps exist that can fool a jeweler, because of scam sites. But are the only ones with our dealer reps us?
-
Tired of adverts on RWI? - Subscribe by clicking HERE and PMing Trailboss for instructions and they will magically go away!
Canal Street Reps and Our reps
- Thread starter sawalke4
- Start date
You do realize that the same trusted dealers sell those Canal St reps right ? Those watches are sold wholesale to those street vendors worldwide. I've seen pricing at approx $10 bucks per watch, sometimes less. Obvioulsy this is for a volume purchase. You're not going to sell a WM9 Sub for $400 on the street. There is a price point they shoot for, which is usually $50-$75 bucks. It's a whole different market. The buyer is looking for a brand name, and a dial color. That's it. Then they haggle from a starting price usually around $150. Also, there is always the risk of seizure by Law enforcement. Losing a few $10 watches is easier to swallow, than a dozen $250 reps. Think about it.
When you are asking about sale volume of our dealers I suggest looking at order number. In my experience I had two watches purchased from one of trusted dealers with 6 months period between purchases. The difference between order numbers was about ~40 (don't remember exactly). Therefore I would assume that dealer sold roughly 50 watches in 6 months. I guess all of them stayed within this community.
Reason for rather modest sales might be the price. At the end of the day, not everyone will pay ~300 for the watch that is known to be a rep. However the same person will pay ~2k for a questionable watch and will be happy thinking that he got a good deal (while he still got the same rep).
Reason for rather modest sales might be the price. At the end of the day, not everyone will pay ~300 for the watch that is known to be a rep. However the same person will pay ~2k for a questionable watch and will be happy thinking that he got a good deal (while he still got the same rep).
So that means that street vendors/ market vendors get $10-$20 reps just because they are easier to sell and if they loose them to law enforcement the loss is less. Their market is Joe Bloggs who knows nothing about watches but wants a shiny Rolex for $50.00 to impress his friends.
The reps like WM9 and UPO's AND Ultimate Santos are limited to this community. However Joe Bloggs might get a Noobmariner if he buys one from a scam site if he is prepared to pay $800.00, but Joe doent usually make a purchase like this. If he does, its a one time deal and when the watch breaks down, he usually calls it a loss and doesnt repair or buy another. Is this accurate?
Also, if Joe Bloggs were in the market for a good quality rep, and did stumble upon one of our dealers sites, he would think its a scam, because he thinks that you can't get an AAA++++ quality rep for less than $700 and proceed to buy one from the scam sites.
The reps like WM9 and UPO's AND Ultimate Santos are limited to this community. However Joe Bloggs might get a Noobmariner if he buys one from a scam site if he is prepared to pay $800.00, but Joe doent usually make a purchase like this. If he does, its a one time deal and when the watch breaks down, he usually calls it a loss and doesnt repair or buy another. Is this accurate?
Also, if Joe Bloggs were in the market for a good quality rep, and did stumble upon one of our dealers sites, he would think its a scam, because he thinks that you can't get an AAA++++ quality rep for less than $700 and proceed to buy one from the scam sites.
Everything is out there...You do have dealers selling our type of watches on the street at all (drastically) different price points. Granted they are not common, and you really have to have a good eye for telling the difference. It's much more difficult to find a vendor in conus who will stock our type of reps at the price points we buy them for from our trusted dealers.
Once I have met a vendor with a box of reps who wanted to sell TW best watches as an swiss make AAA+++ , however he was overcharging and riding on the scam sites misinformation to make make more money. I told him the prices were ridiculous and he replied "look online they are the same prices" and when I explained that those were scam sites, he said "well the genuine is more than 6 grand, these are a good deal compared to that" Apart from that I have only seen terrible canal grade reps in the wild.
I think Canal St is more about the adventure and haggling. The watches in the storefronts are mostly horrible and while the 'backroom' selection can be a little better, they are still mostly just cheap 21j or quartz models.
I found a really nice white Chanel J21, but I couldn't get him under 175. I passed & bought one for 88 from a trusted dealer when I got home. It was fun, but I'll leave Canal St to my wife & her purse collecting. lol
I found a really nice white Chanel J21, but I couldn't get him under 175. I passed & bought one for 88 from a trusted dealer when I got home. It was fun, but I'll leave Canal St to my wife & her purse collecting. lol
If you think that's fun, you chould check out the markets in Bahrain, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Good times.
Street fakes are fun. I always buy a couple when travelling. And I wear them occasionally too (yep even the the green planet ocean hehe).
I've heard it mentioned many times that for the dealers like Josh, forum sales are a very small part of their business. So you've got to assume that the big guys sell to resellers.
Singapore? Are you sure you've got the right country there?
I've heard it mentioned many times that for the dealers like Josh, forum sales are a very small part of their business. So you've got to assume that the big guys sell to resellers.
Singapore? Are you sure you've got the right country there?
I think you are selling your reps short I think the reason you don't see reps like yours is because you and all of us think we are seeing gens when they are good reps. How often do you really inspect someones watch on their wrist you just take their word it is a Gen
You do realize you asked this question in a rep forum?!?
haha, every single one of us inspect the crap out of other peoples watches!
You shoulda saw me at the beer fest last year... i saw a ton of omega's and rolex's. In the end... you can't really tell from 3 feet away but i squinted my hardest!
You should see the rep market in Mexico. It's hilarious. I will take pics next time. They are the 10 dollar watches I mentioned. If you "splurge" they have the automatic ones for 70 bucks or so. I guarantee you that 80% or more of most dealer sales are what we would call Canal St reps. I don't know how many of you have marketing backgrounds, but everything has a price point. Ever wonder why 98% of what you see sold in infomercials doesn't sell for over 20 bucks ? It's been proven through research that we will be impulsive on purchases of 20 or under. To a certain extent that's what street vendors look at. I am sure there will be some with the occasional good rep. But if that's all they had, they would go broke. Besides, we have already proven a million times that we on this forum can nit pick a watch to death. But the average Joe, even a GEN owner has no clue.
Yup. The report I read in College showed how 19.99 is considered by the average viewer as throw away money. They also count on you just dumping the product if you don't like it, or doesn't do what it claimed. That's why they all offer Money back Guarantee. The figure they reported was 7%. That's the percentage of people who will go through the trouble of filling out the forms and shipping the stuff back. Quite interesting info. Marketing is behind everything we see. Even the watches we buy.