The Breitling Watch Source Forums

They spend fortunes on advertising but they dont use the same medium as others read watch mags they spend loads as in mens mags as well, Also the Breitling display teams etc it all costs money, Go to an air show and see the breitling stands it al has to be paid for.

I think anything is worth what you are prepaired to pay for it and I see Breitling as good value for money.

a while ago a girl I knew opened a salon in london, you know massage,manicures & pedicures that sort of thing she charged a pretty good price like £25 for as pedicure but all her competitors were charging tripple that but she wanted to give value for money. anyway she wasnt very busy and couldnt understand why. anyway after a while in desperation she spoke to another girl in the trade she told her what the problem was she was too cheap so people thought that they were no good she said if your competitors are charging £75 you charge £125 but people wont pay that she replied but however she tried it guess what it worked and within a year she had three salons and was making a fortune, She wasnt doing anything diffrent than before but people had the perception if it was expensive it was better qualiaty you get what you pay for.

This may or may not be true of Breitling but do you think if Rolex were £100 anyone would buy them no cause its an asspirational thing more money + better in a lot of peoples minds.

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Agree!!!!!

I'm not so sure that Breitlings are that hideously overpriced compared to the actual cost to manufacture. Let's take a Colt auto...a nice simple but well-made model. List price is $2350 on a leather strap and tang buckle. Let's say the dealer pays a little over half of that, say $1200. The distributor gets to share a bit off of the top, let's say about 33%, so that means the distributor got it from Breitling for roughly $800. I don't really know for sure, but these are what seem reasonable based on what little I know about other kinds of products.

This may seem like alot of money lost to overhead, but really that's about in line with most other things we buy, like electronics. I know from owning stock in many electronics manufacturers that your typical computer component that lists for $100 gets sold by the manufacturer for $25 to $30. So we're talking about a factor of 3 to 4 markup to the consumer....and this is in a supply chain that has been highly optimized. This is unlike watches which may sit around for years before being sold. (Now, the comparison is not perfect...the shipping cost for a $100 electronic component is usually the same as the shipping cost of a $1000 component, hence the overhead does not always scale with price. In the case of watches, we are assuming the overhead does scale with price, because the dominant factor is the cost of financing to the distributor and the retailer...and the cost of shipping is basically the cost of insurance, which also scales with the cost of the watch).

So then, the question is: does it really cost Breitling $800 to make a Colt Auto on a leather strap? Well, the Steinhart LE group buy that we just did in the "special projects" forum cost $500, and I am pretty sure that Steinhart made almost nothing on this. So let's just say it cost $400 to make that watch. While the Steinhart is a very nice watch, it ain't no Breitling. The Breitling movement (albeit basic for an auto) is still somewhat better, the case is definitely superior, and the strap is higher grade leather.

So in the end, it would be difficult for a competing company to make a watch of the quality of Breitling and to realistically sell it for much cheaper with the same kind of distribution system, where there is a dealer in every major city. Some companies do cut out the middle man (or men) and sell directly to the consumer, but then you can't really go look at them in person before you buy.

As always, take everything I say with a huge grain of salt. I am just thinking out loud. Probably some of the experts on this forum would have a better idea of the typical overhead structure faced by the watch industry.

///M

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There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness." --Dave Barry

Because you pay for Quality, Quality Control and Brand Name.

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Panerai PAM212 | Panerai Diver Strap
Panerai PAM111 | Black Croc Strap
Omega Planet Ocean | SS Bracelet
Rolex Submariner | SS Bracelet (Sold, Awaiting Funds)
Breitling Navitimer Olympus | Brown Croc Strap (Arriving)

Breitlings are expensive, like other expensive things, so that everyone and their dog doesn't own one. It's called luxury pricing.

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Avenger Skyland
If I said I was good, you'd think I was bragging.
If I told you I wasn't, you'd know I was lying.

That is not really the correct outlook. They are expensive (in Breitling's case actually relatively inexpensive) because of the quality of their components and assembly, all the labor that goes into it, and design, to name a few things.

I think the first thing everybody needs to realize is that Breitling, as all brands, only exist to make money, besides that there is no reason for their existence so they need to make as much money on their product as possible. Charging even $50 less on every watch they sell would amount in a massive loss of funds considering how many units they move every year. If people are buying them at their price, clearly there is nothing wrong with it.

What it costs to build a Breitling, or any watch for that matter is certainly not in components. For a SS Breitling, the value of the components (assuming there is not a precious-metal rotor or something of that sort) is probably only a few dollars, 316l steel is pretty cheap when you are using 8oz of it... However, it takes skilled labor to build something so precise, and since skilled labor is few and far between, it is expensive. If they do not have people who are masters at polishing or working on movements, they are screwed. The real value in a watch such as a Breitling, and more so on higher-end watches (you can all say it is ridiculously overpriced, but imagine how many hours go into making a Royal Oak Offshore) is in its construction and having people work on it and not have it be some stamped, mass produced piece of crap.

Now obviously store overhead and shipping and advertising all add to the cost, but to think that something that is expensive: be it a Breitling, an Audemars, a bespoke Cesare Attolini suit, a bottle of Chateau D'Yquem, a Pagani Zonda, or what have you, is so just to be expensive is asinine.

I will go a step further, and say that many things, such as a Breitling, or a Rolls Royce Phantom, are actually good deals. I know you will find that shocking, but think to yourself, how much money would you need to be paid to make that. My main point is that things that are expensive (for the most part, there are exceptions) are that way for a reason, not because they are arbitrarily priced at some astronomically high value to make it seem exclusive. Remember, expensive items can be good deals, and cheap items can be complete rip-offs; you need to understand what makes something worth money before you can claim it to be a waste of money.

If anyone has any serious disagreements with me I would recommend you watch National Geographic's Ultimate Factories on Rolls Royce, I cannot think of anything better to illustrate my point.

All agreed. Thing is, much of that expertise and precision could be sold for less than it is. There's more to cost than raw materials and skill. Plenty of companies have all of those things and aren't in this price bracket.

You need to read a few more of my posts prior to making a proclamation about what I'd find shocking. In a previous life, I routinely sold things like $8000 A/V processors, an item which many find nuts. Of course, there's the expertise, precision, and QC with things like that also, but after a certain point, the cost remains.

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Avenger Skyland
If I said I was good, you'd think I was bragging.
If I told you I wasn't, you'd know I was lying.

I wasn't talking to you specifically, just everyone in general, I wasn't trying to make assumptions of sorts.

I have had the pleasure to see some true craftsmen work on their respective field of expertise and I think their time is much worth what you pay for it. For example: The gunsmiths at Smith & Wesson and other large firearm companies (the better ones) pay their gunsmiths quite handsomely because they have such a limited skill that those companies cannot afford to not have those people work for them. Or look at Luciano Bosis shotguns, sure they cost well over $100,000, but that one gun takes the gunsmith and engraver nearly one year. I also have had experience in manufacturing some higher-end items, and I will say even though some people would complain about the prices, I wouldn't do that work for less money than was being asked.

I think most of us on this forum appreciate quality so this is not too difficult of a concept to wrap our heads around, yet I find myself so frustrated when I get into the conversation about "expensive" things with a person who will just never understand and think I am crazy, here seems like a nice respite from that.

I've been watching this thread for a while and trying to refrain, but I can't do it

Expensive is a relative term, the OP got some grief in a WTB ad for not having a high enough budget for what he wanted so I suspect that to him these pieces do seem expensive. Let's be honest - a Breitling is a month's worth of salary - or more to some members of this forum and a day's worth to others.

I am a business owner who makes money by having a unique offering - not a product in my case, but services. I can only supply a certain amount of that service so I price the services at the point where I can use my resources as fully as possible without disappointing customers - I deliberately want to price myself out of some people's budget because I can only fulfil a certain amount.

Breitling (or any other brand) will do the same thing. They can only produce 180 - 200 thousand watches per year so they want to price them at the point where they sell that many - there's no point in creating demand for 500,000 watches if you can't produce that many.

Additionally, it's not simply a case of buying more production - production numbers will always be kept somewhat low to maintain a sense of exclusivity - would a Rolls Royce have the same appeal if there were 100,000 produced every year.

We also have to consider the availability of skilled resources - the quartz revolution came perilously close to killing the mechanical watch industry so people were simply not going to school to learn watchmaking in the 70s and early 80s - those skills haven't fully been replaced yet which means that skilled and experienced watchmakers can command high salaries in the major Swiss firms.

Finally (well, for now), remember that more than half of the retail price is post Breitling mark up - in some major markets the distributor sells to the retailer for 55% of retail, and the distributor is making money so you have to assume that Breitling is selling to the distributor at 40 - 45% of retail, maybe even less.

We don't buy these watches for their ability to tell time, they are about how they make us feel - I hope that I have another 50 years on this planet, and judging by another recent thread I am older than many here. If I can own a watch for 50 years, spend $5,000 on it now and another $5,000 (in today's money) on servicing then that's about 54 cents per day for the rest of my life - and that doesn't allow for the residual value or the fact that I can leave the watch in my will for future generations.

Expensive - nah, it's a bargain.

With this, I disagree. There is certainly an incentive to artificially increase demand beyond supply. The prices will rise accordingly. This is the whole point of luxury goods. It places a premium on the item.



With this, I whole-heartedly agree. You've summed up well the feeling that draws me to these timepieces.

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“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” - Albert Einstein

Not if, like Breitling, you have been seeking market share for pretty much all of the last decade. If that were the case then the investment in models would be at the high end and yet the most product line expansion has been in the Aeromarine range - Breitling's entry level.

I was unaware this was Breitling's long-term business strategy. So you say that they are emphasizing the lower-end models and increasing production volumes? I think this might serve to erode the reputation of the brand as a whole.

Maybe they are too expensive....

Nah! Still love 'em

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“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” - Albert Einstein

My question to all is this: If Breitlings are priced based on the craftmanship and quality, why do they depreciate in value rather than appreciate like Rolex?

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Breitling Evolution White
Tag Heuer Carrera Automatic

Not all Rolex's appreciate. In fact, the vast majority do not. A select few (Submariner e.g.) that have been very well taken care of can be re-sold at a higher price.

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“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” - Albert Einstein

Clearly their market studies are showing that this is not a good plan for them. It seems (damn, Roff beat me to it) that they're actually trying to get in the door at the "lower end" of their line to purchase a little market share.

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Avenger Skyland
If I said I was good, you'd think I was bragging.
If I told you I wasn't, you'd know I was lying.