The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Right chaps, the Legende seems to be the frontrunner at the moment, love that silver/white dial!!

I've just been checking my chronolog tonight and noticed that it weighs 224.40gr! That surely can't be correct, if it is thats nearly half as much again as my SA. I'm thinking I may need a few trips to the gym.

Have I got that wrong?

Cheers

You probably have the weight on the SA wrong, the one you're looking at is head-only. With the bracelet I bet it is closer to 250g.

Roff makes a good point, but I have a completely different view.

Breitling has enjoyed global market penetration through a combination of attractive styling AND aggressive discounting. My opinion is that they are targeting a young-ish (20s/30s) customer base to try and build lifetime affinity and therefore historically recognized that ADs may have needed to be a bit flexible on price to get the product into the marketplace. Maybe this doesn't hold true with the Bentley line and some of the precious metals models but for the majority of their offerings priced between USD 3-6K, the last 7-8 years you've been able to negotiate (unless you're dealing with an establishment whose name begins with 'T').

Now all of a sudden Breitling is not OK with the distribution strategy they've sanctioned as necessary to build brand recognition. OK, so let's follow that through:

-Fire ADs who they deem have 'abused' the discounting privilege;
-Hike AD cost for everyone else.

Now what does this accomplish? A few things. First, it's going to lose you customers as without the ability to negotiate discounts some people may simply not be able to afford a given timepiece, or worse, find that timepiece is now priced equivalent/close to equivalent with a competitor (maybe a Rolex Sub). I.

Second, the last couple of years have seen some pretty radical departures from Breitling's historical styling (see Chronomat B01 and Galactic lines, rubber bezel on Superocean); so while they're improving functionally (B01 movement) they will likely need to incentivize purchasers to buy into the Breitling design department's 'vision' of the future. With tight AD discounting restrictions, this probably won't happen.

Third, the global economy is still terrible and likely to remain that way for some time. Most of Breitling's new customer base did pretty well for themselves 2002-2007 but after that all bets, and bonuses, are off. So again, if ever there were a time to look askance at discounting this would seem to be it. At least in the U.S., most customers are NOT at a point where they can absorb retail price increases-we very much have a stagflation thing going on here.

Fourth, and I've made this point previously, Breitling probably incurred a lot of costs in designing the B01 movement and they will need to recoup these costs through sales. I think it's probably a better business strategy at this stage of the game to encourage ADs to push product rather than to try and build some faux facade of exclusivity as the company's financial health could very well depend on it.

So I think Breitling needs to continue to encourage discounting, even if on the down-low. Otherwise customers will either find something else to do with their disposable income or they'll purchase from a competitor. And I think the latter could become a problem for our friends in Switzerland in the near future.

Just my $.02, and from a US perspective at that. Still a big fan of the brand, hoping they get their heads on straight and start listening to customers rather than drink the Kool-Aid of engineering arrogance.