When Bart Gronefeld and his brother Tim returned to the Netherlands after a successful career for the historian Renaud et Papi in Switzerland, he knew he wanted to continue working as a watchmaker.
But the country has no watchmaking companies to talk to, leaving the brothers trying to choose between starting their own brand, starting a watchmaking company or engaging in a family-owned, small-scale jewelry business run by their parents.
Advice from the parents kept them from buying.
“My father told me that, if I could work Monday through Friday, I should do so because working a salesman is seven days a week, in the evening and now I use 24/7 ecommerce. My father thought it was crazy,” Bart Gronefeld told WATCHPRO in our January Main Questions.
The Gronefelds established a service business that cared for every Breitling watch in the Netherlands, and later their well-known brand, which has become one of the world’s most independent people.
It seems to me that Mrs. and Mr. Gronefeld were at the forefront of advising watchmakers to refrain from selling, and the past two years have brought relief to large-scale corporate groups.
For the past decade, LVMH, Swatch Group and Richemont brands have stopped working with reputable retailers and focused on their retailers in cities around the world such as London, New York, Geneva and Hong Kong.
Recently brands like Breitling, Omega and TAG Heuer have changed their approach to opening monobrand boutiques in partnership with the best sellers, instead of competing with them.
The outbreak has created a problem for businesses that own high-end shopping malls on Bond Street, Rodeo Drive or 5th Avenue where business has been hit hard by traffic restrictions.
The brand’s response to this drop in sales through the boutiques they own directly was to stay in the hands and wait.
In the meantime, authorized retailers outside the hot springs immediately entered to survive, and since then they have become accustomed to doing what they do best: serving and entertaining customers.
The owners climbed up to offer the clocks on the fire itself. Covid-protected clicks and customer purchases began to proliferate, and plans were made to take advantage of the needs as the stores reopened.
By the summer of 2020, retailers were returning and restoring some of the sales lost during closing.
What did Swiss watchmakers do right away? To take their four-week summer vacation, a few weeks after their factories were approved to reopen.
There are many reasons why watchmakers make garbage sellers, but it is these deep ideas that cannot be overcome.
Vendors pray a little every morning for customers to come.
Companies think, incorrectly, if they build customers they always come.
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