Thanks, again, Robert, for the dissertation on the realities of being a TD for the forum. I believe this submission should be a "sticky" to remind members that things are not as simple as they may appear.
dave
dave
-
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Little insight as to how it all works
- Thread starter Time4Direct
- Start date
This is so true and have experienced this first hand too. Very well explained. This should be made a sticky by now.
Fantastic post and very informative!! Found it very intersting and it helps us see that it isn't always as simple as we think it should be!
I remember reading this when I first joined and instantly knew who my preferred TD was going to be.
A sad, sad loss for us all.
A sad, sad loss for us all.
Unfortunately yes......
http://forum.replica-watch.info/vb/showthread.php/rip-robert-t4d-91828?t=91828
i agree.. this was such an informative post for me as a noobie.. &i'm sure it will continue to help many who are new to this hobby, even with Robert's passing..
once again, RIP Robert..
re-reading this part made me lol in the office!
BUMP for a fantastic and must read thread.
I've only bought one watch since Roberts untimely demise........I'm sure that if he was still with us, I would have bought substantially more.
RIP Robert.
I've only bought one watch since Roberts untimely demise........I'm sure that if he was still with us, I would have bought substantially more.
RIP Robert.
Col, Mods.
Could we not only stickie this but make it so people read this before agreeing to the t & c before joining.
It is a superb insight on what most people believe should be just like amazon.com
Could we not only stickie this but make it so people read this before agreeing to the t & c before joining.
It is a superb insight on what most people believe should be just like amazon.com
- 30/3/08
- 43,270
- 15,982
- 113
Thanks for posting. Really informative and answered alot of my questions that i was going to post and ask about.
Cheers
Cheers
From PureTime:
I wanted to take the time to write a detailed breakdown of how the replica watch industry works for all of you. Doing this will result in all of you having a greater understanding of what we, as a replica watch company go through when processing your orders.
The information provided in this thread is largely the case for every other replica watch dealer based within China, therefore most of the points in this thread can be applied to most of the dealers on the forums. So whether you decide to buy from us or not, this thread will be an informative read for you.
Who are we and what do we do?
PureTime is a replica watch dealer. We are NOT a replica watch manufacturer. However we do work closely with the Noob factory and some other makers, we have a degree of involvement in what gets produced and the QC of the prototypes before the watch is mass-produced. Other dealers may or may not have their own close relationships with various other manufacturers, and whilst we are close with many other manufacturers, we are the closest with Noob (A.K.A. Mr. Crème De La Crème).
Factory Refund Policies:
1. We do not have a factory; we are located within an office within Guangzhou.
2. We do not hold stock of a watch UNLESS it is a best-selling and current watch. This means if a watch used to be a best seller, we won’t hold it in the office. This is to reduce potential losses, as the minute we get the watch from the maker, we must pay for it and it is non-refundable on our end.
3. As we mentioned in point 2, once the watch is in our office, we cannot get a refund on it. The best we can do is get an exchange but ONLY if the new watch you want is from the same maker or if your watch doesn’t pass QC.
Why does it sometimes take a long time for me to get QC pics of my order?
Each maker has its own way of working, and this is something we have no control over. At best we have a very limited scope of control as to what we can ask a maker to do. Ultimately they provide us with our products, being fully transparent, they wear the trousers in the relationship.
Bearing this in mind, some makers take longer to either assemble our order (which we then pass onto you) or to deliver the order to our office (some makers will deliver to us, some will not). This affects the timeframe in which we can receive your watch. It also means (if they have delivered the watch to us) that if your watch has a defect it takes even longer for us to get you QC pics, as we have to wait for the maker to re-deliver the watch to our office. In all honesty, the makers produce many watches, with quite a few of them not being up to our standard (hence all dealers on the forums having to implement their own QC procedures).
We are not deliberately being slow, or lazy, or anything of the sort, but as I said, we have a limited scope as to how far we can push a maker to improve their own policies before they tell us to… f*ck off.
How come when I order a watch, I get informed that it is out of stock AFTER I have paid?
Within this industry it is near impossible to update the website to inform ahead of time whether a watch is out of stock or not. The makers produce what they want, when they want and it always depends on what are the best selling watches CURRENTLY.
If we would even attempt to keep a continuous update on our website of what is and isn’t in stock, it would be a full time job for a few people to do, not only on our end, but also on the makers end.
This isn’t to say that an old watch won’t be in stock, it most likely is, but there are times where it isn’t and it is beyond our control to mark it as out of stock on the website beforehand.
How come when I order a backordered watch, it is sometimes hard for the PureTime staff to tell me when I can expect QC pictures of my watch?
This is largely down to 2 things:
1. The makers seldom tell us when they will give us more stock, and when they do inform us, it is usually only a few days before they deliver it to us.
2. The makers seldom tell us how many they will give us upon our next batch.
This means that if you have ordered ______ ? insert watch name here, and it is on backorder, and let’s say you are no38 on the waiting list, it is hard for us to tell you exactly when you will get QC pics from us. For all we know, the maker will deliver in 2 weeks time 20 pieces, which means you would have to wait for the next cycle.
Preorder and Backorder, the full breakdown:
Preorder: This is where we have been informed before the launch date of a watch approximately when we will be receiving it. We also at this time either get pictures of the finished watch or the prototype (and if the prototype, we inform what additional improvements will be made by the maker before its official release) or pictures of the finished model.
Preorder & Backorder: This is where the pre-sales have exceeded the amount of watches that have been allocated to us by the maker. This means that even before the watch is officially released, we are already out of stock and orders are being put on backorder.
Backorder: The watch is currently sold out and your order has been placed in queue (on the waiting list) for when we receive more stock and can fulfill your order.
What you SHOULD do: The moral of the story is to purchase the watch immediately. DO NOT wait until we have it back in stock, as a lot of the times if a watch is on preorder, it will sell out and go into a status of backorder before we have even got it. Then when a watch is on backorder, it could perpetually be on backorder until the hype and/or desire has died down (which is an unknown amount of time).
What you SHOULDN’T do: As we state in the above paragraph, DO NOT wait until a watch is back in stock. If you want the watch, order it, pay for it, then exercise patience.
How come responses from PureTime are sometimes slow?
We have an average of 500 emails passing through PureTime PER DAY (including Sunday, which is our day off). This is a large amount of emails to answer whilst we also all fulfill our other functions (QC’ing, pictures, videos, descriptions, forum posting, repairs, working with Noob, etc., etc.).
I am placing a big order, how come you can’t offer me a wholesale price or a big discount?
There is an awful lot of work to be done to keep this machine running, and in all honesty one could say that we should employ more people, but one must remember this is a business also, and profit and customer service are the most important things with any business. This means we always need to weigh things up, on the one hand we must maintain good customer service, but also a fair amount of profit. We already employ 10+ people (more than any other dealer) + rent of the office + bills + our Merchant Account takes 10% in fees and PayPal fees and so on and so forth. We must maintain a balance always, because, despite popular belief the profit on a watch isn’t huge, it certainly isn’t 100% or 50% like some people have proclaimed or assumed in the past over the forums.
When we offer incentives to pay via Western Union or Bank Transfer, it is simply because we want to pass our savings onto you. We offer a 10% discount for WU or BT because we save 10% in Merchant account fees. But we still keep the same amount of profit.
To be frank, our prices are already wholesale. There are scores of companies out there that will charge you $1000+ for a watch that we will sell to you for $300. We personally know quite a few companies that will sell a Rolex for $1200 that we sell on our site for just over $200.
We are incredibly grateful for your business, and if there is any chance to reward you further for your patronage, we will do it, however we hope you understand that this isn’t the money making machine that some people state it is and to not think of us, or any other dealer, as mean or money grabbing or anything like that, quite the contrary, all dealers on this forum are in the business for the passion also, not just the profit and therefore we keep our profits as low as possible and give you, our valued customers, a bargain.
Summary:
We hope you have all found this helpful. Here at PureTime we felt the need to step up to the plate and invest the time in being fully transparent with you. We know and understand that the replica watch industry can sometimes be frustrating, and that almost all of you at one point have had a rocky time (whether with us or other dealers), but we hope this thread will serve its purpose in informing you as much as possible as to the mechanics of this industry, in the hopes that a greater understanding will lead to a more harmonious relationship between you and your China based dealer.
Thanks for reading!
Angus & The PureTime Team
I wanted to take the time to write a detailed breakdown of how the replica watch industry works for all of you. Doing this will result in all of you having a greater understanding of what we, as a replica watch company go through when processing your orders.
The information provided in this thread is largely the case for every other replica watch dealer based within China, therefore most of the points in this thread can be applied to most of the dealers on the forums. So whether you decide to buy from us or not, this thread will be an informative read for you.
Who are we and what do we do?
PureTime is a replica watch dealer. We are NOT a replica watch manufacturer. However we do work closely with the Noob factory and some other makers, we have a degree of involvement in what gets produced and the QC of the prototypes before the watch is mass-produced. Other dealers may or may not have their own close relationships with various other manufacturers, and whilst we are close with many other manufacturers, we are the closest with Noob (A.K.A. Mr. Crème De La Crème).
Bearing the above paragraph in mind, this means a few things…
Factory Refund Policies:
1. We do not have a factory; we are located within an office within Guangzhou.
2. We do not hold stock of a watch UNLESS it is a best-selling and current watch. This means if a watch used to be a best seller, we won’t hold it in the office. This is to reduce potential losses, as the minute we get the watch from the maker, we must pay for it and it is non-refundable on our end.
3. As we mentioned in point 2, once the watch is in our office, we cannot get a refund on it. The best we can do is get an exchange but ONLY if the new watch you want is from the same maker or if your watch doesn’t pass QC.
Why does it sometimes take a long time for me to get QC pics of my order?
Each maker has its own way of working, and this is something we have no control over. At best we have a very limited scope of control as to what we can ask a maker to do. Ultimately they provide us with our products, being fully transparent, they wear the trousers in the relationship.
Bearing this in mind, some makers take longer to either assemble our order (which we then pass onto you) or to deliver the order to our office (some makers will deliver to us, some will not). This affects the timeframe in which we can receive your watch. It also means (if they have delivered the watch to us) that if your watch has a defect it takes even longer for us to get you QC pics, as we have to wait for the maker to re-deliver the watch to our office. In all honesty, the makers produce many watches, with quite a few of them not being up to our standard (hence all dealers on the forums having to implement their own QC procedures).
We are not deliberately being slow, or lazy, or anything of the sort, but as I said, we have a limited scope as to how far we can push a maker to improve their own policies before they tell us to… f*ck off.
How come when I order a watch, I get informed that it is out of stock AFTER I have paid?
Within this industry it is near impossible to update the website to inform ahead of time whether a watch is out of stock or not. The makers produce what they want, when they want and it always depends on what are the best selling watches CURRENTLY.
If we would even attempt to keep a continuous update on our website of what is and isn’t in stock, it would be a full time job for a few people to do, not only on our end, but also on the makers end.
This isn’t to say that an old watch won’t be in stock, it most likely is, but there are times where it isn’t and it is beyond our control to mark it as out of stock on the website beforehand.
How come when I order a backordered watch, it is sometimes hard for the PureTime staff to tell me when I can expect QC pictures of my watch?
This is largely down to 2 things:
1. The makers seldom tell us when they will give us more stock, and when they do inform us, it is usually only a few days before they deliver it to us.
2. The makers seldom tell us how many they will give us upon our next batch.
This means that if you have ordered ______ ? insert watch name here, and it is on backorder, and let’s say you are no38 on the waiting list, it is hard for us to tell you exactly when you will get QC pics from us. For all we know, the maker will deliver in 2 weeks time 20 pieces, which means you would have to wait for the next cycle.
Preorder and Backorder, the full breakdown:
Preorder: This is where we have been informed before the launch date of a watch approximately when we will be receiving it. We also at this time either get pictures of the finished watch or the prototype (and if the prototype, we inform what additional improvements will be made by the maker before its official release) or pictures of the finished model.
Preorder & Backorder: This is where the pre-sales have exceeded the amount of watches that have been allocated to us by the maker. This means that even before the watch is officially released, we are already out of stock and orders are being put on backorder.
Backorder: The watch is currently sold out and your order has been placed in queue (on the waiting list) for when we receive more stock and can fulfill your order.
What you SHOULD do: The moral of the story is to purchase the watch immediately. DO NOT wait until we have it back in stock, as a lot of the times if a watch is on preorder, it will sell out and go into a status of backorder before we have even got it. Then when a watch is on backorder, it could perpetually be on backorder until the hype and/or desire has died down (which is an unknown amount of time).
What you SHOULDN’T do: As we state in the above paragraph, DO NOT wait until a watch is back in stock. If you want the watch, order it, pay for it, then exercise patience.
How come responses from PureTime are sometimes slow?
We have an average of 500 emails passing through PureTime PER DAY (including Sunday, which is our day off). This is a large amount of emails to answer whilst we also all fulfill our other functions (QC’ing, pictures, videos, descriptions, forum posting, repairs, working with Noob, etc., etc.).
I am placing a big order, how come you can’t offer me a wholesale price or a big discount?
There is an awful lot of work to be done to keep this machine running, and in all honesty one could say that we should employ more people, but one must remember this is a business also, and profit and customer service are the most important things with any business. This means we always need to weigh things up, on the one hand we must maintain good customer service, but also a fair amount of profit. We already employ 10+ people (more than any other dealer) + rent of the office + bills + our Merchant Account takes 10% in fees and PayPal fees and so on and so forth. We must maintain a balance always, because, despite popular belief the profit on a watch isn’t huge, it certainly isn’t 100% or 50% like some people have proclaimed or assumed in the past over the forums.
When we offer incentives to pay via Western Union or Bank Transfer, it is simply because we want to pass our savings onto you. We offer a 10% discount for WU or BT because we save 10% in Merchant account fees. But we still keep the same amount of profit.
To be frank, our prices are already wholesale. There are scores of companies out there that will charge you $1000+ for a watch that we will sell to you for $300. We personally know quite a few companies that will sell a Rolex for $1200 that we sell on our site for just over $200.
We are incredibly grateful for your business, and if there is any chance to reward you further for your patronage, we will do it, however we hope you understand that this isn’t the money making machine that some people state it is and to not think of us, or any other dealer, as mean or money grabbing or anything like that, quite the contrary, all dealers on this forum are in the business for the passion also, not just the profit and therefore we keep our profits as low as possible and give you, our valued customers, a bargain.
Summary:
We hope you have all found this helpful. Here at PureTime we felt the need to step up to the plate and invest the time in being fully transparent with you. We know and understand that the replica watch industry can sometimes be frustrating, and that almost all of you at one point have had a rocky time (whether with us or other dealers), but we hope this thread will serve its purpose in informing you as much as possible as to the mechanics of this industry, in the hopes that a greater understanding will lead to a more harmonious relationship between you and your China based dealer.
Thanks for reading!
Angus & The PureTime Team
