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Buying a watch is easy, but getting a good watch for a good price can be difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing. When navigating the world of online watch sales, there are a number of pitfalls that inexperienced buyers can fall into. This is why if you’re new to either watches or online watch purchases of any significant price, you should stick to trusted dealers with solid reputations.
Unfortunately, when it comes to luxury watches in particular, there are some unscrupulous individuals who are willing to set aside their morals to get their hands on money – whatever the cost.
Table of Contents
Buying Budget Watches
When buying a budget watch for as cheap as possible, your options are a little more limited than a luxury watch. This is because your only choice is online. Whilst occasionally you may find a brick and mortar store selling deadstock at a huge discount, this is extremely rare and relies on being in the right place at the right time.
Buying a budget watch online is pretty simple as you can keep your eyes on pages such as Amazon daily deals, as well as scour a wide variety of other independent websites with the click of your mouse.
The other place to pick up a budget watch online is eBay. Although nowhere near as popular as Amazon, eBay has a lot of deadstock and watches which are brand new but couldn’t be sold in stores. As retailers want to get rid of this stock as fast as possible, you will find significant discounts when comparing prices with traditional stores.
Buying Luxury Watches
In Person
The best way to buy a luxury watch is in person at either an authorized or grey market dealer. You can alternatively buy a watch from a private individual in-person, although this is not advised due to the risk of fraud or scams being significantly higher.
Grey market dealers often offer much better value for money than an authorized dealer since they are usually small companies or individuals who have a vested interest in customer service. Granted, they want to make a profit as much as anyone else, but the margins in luxury watches are fairly slim and the industry relies heavily on trust and repeat business.
Of course, the main benefit of buying a watch in person is that you get to try it on and inspect it from all angles. You will never be left with a nasty surprise if you use all of your own diligence in the initial transaction.
eBay
Firstly there are two types of sellers on eBay, these are causal and professional. You should have no worries when buying from a professional watch dealer on eBay since their reputation is likely more valuable than any watch they’re selling. Therefore, your risk is 0, or close enough to this number.
Buying from a casual seller requires a little more knowledge. You must be confident in identifying exactly which watch you’re buying, as well as your own abilities in examining any faults when it arrives.
If you know exactly what you are doing and have seen a non-professional seller advertising a watch on eBay, the chances are it is not advertised 100% efficiently. Casual sellers will likely not be aware of all specifications of their watch, nor will they have the feedback of a professional watch dealer. However, perhaps most important is the quality of pictures. Casual sellers will have no idea how to photograph a watch in the correct lighting and therefore will undersell their watch by making it look worse than it actually is.
One final point to give yourself an edge over the competition is using an eBay Sniper such as Gixen. This free tool is 100% safe and will bid in the final seconds of an auction, giving everyone else bidding no chance to respond. Whilst this doesn’t guarantee a win, it does give you the best chance possible.
Other Websites
Depending on customer reviews, websites owned by grey-market watch dealers are a good place to pick up a reasonably priced watch.
This does not mean you should part with your money over the internet without thinking twice about it. But with that being said, there are many grey market dealers such as Bobs Watches, Luxury Bazaar, and a whole host of 3rd party sellers on Chrono24 which have a lot of rare stock for the best prices.
It will be a lot harder to haggle over priced compared to eBay or an in-person transaction, but if you choose your dealer wisely you are in very safe hands.
Lastly, it should go without saying that you should avoid websites with no history of selling luxury watches since this is a disaster waiting to happen.
Forums
Arguably the riskiest place to buy luxury watches online are internet forums. The reason for this is that if anything goes wrong with the transaction, you are putting your faith in an anonymous user from a different state, or perhaps a different country. When s*** hits the fan, you have little to no recourse in terms of getting your money back.
Obviously, users with higher post counts and past transaction histories are significantly less risky. However, you never truly know what is going on in a person’s life. They may have developed a drug habit or some other kind of addiction and desperately need money more than you could ever know.
