What are the real advantages and disadvantages of buying from authorized dealers?
While authorized dealers are normally the safest choice for buying an expensive watch, there are many other options. Making the most informed decision is always the best choice.
Authorized dealers normally offer these advantages over unauthorized (gray market) dealers:
- If you buy from an authorized dealer, then have a problem that they can not or will not solve, you can get the manufacturer to intervene on your behalf. But manufacturers have no control over or influence with unauthorized dealers, so won’t be able to bail you out of a problem with them.
- *Some* authorized dealers are adding their own 1 or 2 year warranty extensions over the manufacturer’s factory warranty.
- The factory warranty you get through an authorized dealer can be honored by any other authorized dealer and the manufacturer’s service center. But the warranty from an unauthorized dealer will only be honored by that specific dealer. If your unauthorized dealer goes out of business, your warranty coverage goes up in smoke.
- An authorized dealer can special order accessories and unusual versions (like on optional bracelets/straps or special purpose calibrated chronograph bezels) that non-authorized dealers usually cannot.
- Many people do not realize that you can mail order from an authorized dealer. If you know what you want, you do not have to physically visit an authorized dealer’s store to make a purchase. Most can accept a credit card purchase by telephone or fax and ship the watch to you. If you give them the measurement of the diameter of your wrist, they can even pre-size the watch bracelet for you.
But authorized dealers are far from consistent or perfect. In addition to usually offering only modest discounts off of the manufacturer’s retail price, authorized dealers sometimes come with these disadvantages:
- Highly variable in knowledge, courtesy and willingness to negotiate. Sometimes staffed by sales people with only basic sales experience from working in non-jewelry stores. Some will not take you seriously as a customer if you do not look like an extravagant or wealthy person.
- You may have multiple dealers in your area, requiring you to shop multiple locations and different stores to find the item you want or negotiate your best deal.
- You may have no dealers in your area. Authorized dealers are concentrated mostly in and near highly populated cities, so are convenient shopping venues for only a moderately small portion of the watch buying public.
- It can be difficult to find out what all the authorized dealers are in your area. Not all manufacturers are able to provide complete or current lists when you contact them for dealer information.
- Typically, you must travel to them during the days and hours they are open.
- Dealers often have very limited subsets of the watches available from any one manufacturer. They will usually offer to order other models for you. But at that point you are no better off than ordering it direct by telephone or Internet.
- May have watches that have been excessively handled by browsing customers, faded or otherwise impaired from being left in a sunny display window, are no longer with their correct box and other packaging, or have had parts like straps, clasps or premium display boxes swapped out with other watches of the same brand to make one customer happy at another’s expense.
- Dealers seldom bother to carry original accessories for the brands they sell. If pressed, they might offer to special order them for you. But it is often less trouble ordering them yourself from the manufacturer’s service center.
- Often unaware of new models and options due to insufficiently updated manufacturer’s catalogs and lack of access or desire to read the manufacturer’s website.
- Often use ploys of creating fear, uncertainty and doubt to scare you away from other dealers–rather than offering a true value advantage to earn your business.