The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Very good point. I can't see the need for Breitling to move upmarket either. And imo usually that's the only reason a brand would introduce some ultra-high-end models (not for the profit of the very low sales volume of these exclusive complications). Too, without large cash reserve of large corporate ownership for such long term strategy, it would be a huge gamble, even if they wanted to.

At present Breitling already has the reputation of excellent quality watches at (comparatively) great values, and that is a great place to be in.

Branding strategy is a lot more than just watch design. If it was, those $10 watch stands with their amazing variety would have killed every "branded" watch out there. So in many ways, which design direction Breitling decides to go to, IS arbritary. Likewise "Tools for professionals" is obviously a branding strategy (what with so many owners afraid to even shower with a 300m rated Ling!!). Breitlings are NOT actually / literally a "tool" watch. For these reasons, I like some of the ideas brought up here, like ceramic, display back, etc.

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a few Pams...

Roff, could the numbers be a bit off? If 1 day=24 hrs=86,400 seconds, a difference of 1 day in 2 years equates to HUNDREDS of seconds off per day?

On the other hand, accuracy of a day off in 70 years is only abt 3-4 seconds off per day -- within the realm of COSC -- ie ALL Breitling watches, no?

Is my math correct?

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a few Pams...

I'm not saying the 19 should disappear either but it would be extremely costly to produce the additional functions that you're suggesting. How would Breitling fund the additional expenses from producing these movements? It's going to come out of every customer's pocket. If they increase their offerings at the higher end of the range then should they reduce the number of pieces at the lower end of the lineup? I'd actually prefer to see an overall reduction as I think there are too many similar looking models.

Why does Breitling want to capture the watch buyer at all stages in his/her watch-buying life cycle? They want to attract the newbie watch shopper, the avid watch buyer, and the hardcore watch collector. To have a sense of exclusivity in the brand I don't think you can successfully have a lineup for each buyer simply because the high end buyer doesn't want Joe Schmo to be able to afford one as well. If you buy a Ferrari do you want Ferrari to create a $50k car so the average Joe can afford one? No, I think that diminishes the feeling of exclusivity for the high end buyer. With the current designs, pricing, discounting practices, and resale values, high end buyers aren’t going to be attracted to the brand regardless of what changes are made in terms functions & movements.

Can Breitling be successful with a lineup for a buyer at all price points? I don't think so; creating these high end pieces would be a waste of money, cost us all, and could financially ruin the company. I'm fine with where we are; I was attracted to Breitling because they don’t feel like an exclusive yuppie watch company. They feel and look like a high end watch for an average person at a reasonable price and I hope that doesn’t change. BUT, I do think design changes are necessary, and quickly!!

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"I don't own any watches, I just lease them"

Math is off a bit. The moon rotates one complete cycle around earth in 29.54 days. In hours that is 708.96 hours.

On the Olympus, a complete moon cycle is only calculated using 29.5 days (due to the number of teeth of the wheel). 29.5 days equals 708 hours.

Actual = 708.96
Breitling = 708
That leaves us with a difference of 0.96 hours per cycle which equals 57.6 minutes per cycle/month. That means that each month the moon calendar falls 57.6 minutes behind the actual moon.

Round that up to 1 hour to make it easier. Over two years, (24 moon cycles) the moon function would be off by an entire day. (1 hour per month x 24 months = 24 hours)

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"I don't own any watches, I just lease them"

wow. what can i say? congrats roff.

like my rolex, i love breitling.

rico

Ah, just the moonphase! Not the actual time? Got it. Thx!

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a few Pams...

Well said, Roff. It's obvious from your words that you have thought long and hard about what to say and how best to say it, and aside from the fact that I agree with you (like a lot of us here, I suspect), thank you for taking the time and making the effort. As you do in many other ways on this site.

Congrats on the 10,000th post too.

@txturbo - I couldn't agree more about the gold pieces - the calibre 29 is overpriced anyway, but the same can be said for many brands' perpetual offerings - looked at one yesterday (not Breitling) that was $27,000 for a titanium cased perpetual!

The problem I see with Breitling is that they only hit the higher end with their precious metal pieces, I'd like to see the same price point in steel case watches. We all know that gold is a rip off in watches - the price doesn't bear any resemblance to the gold content. There are machining issues that have to be paid for, but gold watches are bad value period. I do think Breitling is stretching the realms of reasonableness with things like the QP - I think it's actually closer to $60k.


@mfserge - we obviously have a different perspective, and that's OK. Other brands have successfully demonstrated that they can have watches that appeal to more mass market buyers and higher end - in fact virtually all of the manufactures do that. I'll accept that their entry level pieces are generally more expensive than Breitling's entry level, but Breitling is going that way anyway if they are moving in house (and if they don't where are the movements coming from with Swatch group cutting off supply).

I did recognise that funding can be difficult for independents, but they have found the money to invest in the equipment to produce 50,000 in house movements per year, so they have committed to an in house path - if you are going to start down that path and not follow up with a move upmarket to leverage it then I'm not sure why that investment was made. Additionally, Breitling spent more than 8 years developing the B01, so clearly they are investing in more than machinery - I don't think that the changes that I am recommending will require dramatic changes in pricing models of existing pieces.

Consider also the following logic.......

We know that ADs buy from distributors for 55% (just increased in US, but let's stay there for this example).

Let's therefore assume that Breitling sells to distributors for 40% of retail - that may be wrong, but a 15% gross margin for the distributor isn't excessive.

Now suppose that Breitling decided that it would sell to distributors for 50% of retail.

That would push distributors to sell to ADs for (say) 65%, and would likely limit max discounts to 20%.


Who suffers from that? Well, North American buyers immediately pay more - only getting an average of 15% or so discount, Howver that loss would be mitigated by an increased resale value - the reason that resale drops so quickly is (in part) because of the low prices available on new models. There's little impact to European buyers, there are few discounts available there anyway. It's possible that the AD numbers would drop in Europe, because some people can't make money with those margins, but I would suggest that they were the badly run operations anyway.

It certainly wouldn't be a pain free change, but it wouldn't be the end of the world - and my model hasn't changed list price at all.

Now look at it from Breitling's perspective - with no change in list price their revenue just increased by 25% (40% of list to 50% of list). There likely would be a short term hit in sales which would reduce that benefit somewhat, but I don't believe that it would be dramatic.

It's a fun debate though isn't it

Roff, I completely agree with Breitling increasing sales prices to distributors as well. I was also thinking this: the majority of Breitling buyers, as other better watch brands, unfortunately do not know the first thing about their watch. Now if one did not know about the deep Breitling discounts, which one would not know of if they had not done any research online or been told by someone they know, then they probably will not get much of a discount at all. I have noticed that at an AD if you demonstrate little knowledge (about as little as theirs) then they are not likely to give a discount. My brother managed to talk an AD is Las Vegas down from absolutely 0% to 30% by demonstrating some simple knowledge. My local AD also told me that out of all of the watches they have sold, only once did they sell a Breitling at more than 10% off.

With this said, it would appear as if Breitling is losing money by not increasing their wholesaler prices with the AD reaping the benefits. Breitling has to have set an acceptable profit margins for ADs, and clearly many ADs have no problem selling all of their Breitlings at 25-30% off. Mix this with the fact that if the majority of Breitlings are bought with a 10% discount or less (probably), then there is conservatively a 10% gap as you pointed out that Breitling is losing money on that the AD's clearly aren't too concerned about making.

This brings me to my next point, increasing profits from the proposed 40% they sell to wholesalers at to 50% is an ENOURMOUS increase in profits, it really does not matter what Breitling sell's to wholesalers at, 10% more would render huge gains in profit. With this extra money they might be more keen on offering more high-end and complicated pieces. I can sort of understand their logic with not introducing the B01, or perhaps another in-house movement they are working on, in other pieces, and expanding the more affordable section of their product line-up to cater to their previous year sales decreases.

Roff is definitely on to something in regards to a move up market for Breitling. In a way, even with this years new pieces, I still see the B01 movement as a harbinger for Breitlings future product offerings. I know that some said it would be difficult for Breitling to push pieces in the PP/VC/Lange price range, but if they had in-house movements in most, if not all of their pieces would it be? If they can get in-house movements, be them the B01 or another creation into more of their collection, then a move upscale becomes much more feasible. I think Ulysse Nardin is a good example of this, I know that they have always been a high-end brand and have always had pieces that were $100K +, but that is not the point. The direction they are going in is what I think Breitling should be doing in regards to UN offering a larger high end sector with more unique complications. They are melding their higher priced pieces with beautiful designs and an exceptional watchmaking prowess. We know that Breitling has the design part down, they make some amazing pieces, and even the ones I do not like I still think their designs are beautiful, and with the B01 Breitling has shown that they have the capability to be great watch makers. Now, just like UN if they could foster a greater relationship between the two it would usher in a range of Breitling watches that would appeal to most all of us, and I think even those spending Patek money, because there is no reason Breitling cannot make a watch just as good.

Interesting that you should mention UN MasterofEvil.

I happen to have the current UN US pricelist right next to me, and I think it demonstrates the range of options that I am suggesting Breitling should offer. UN does start at a higher price point, and I am not suggesting that breitling move it's entire range up - a wide selection of sub $5,000 pieces is a good thing. I am also not suggesting that the Breitling prices should mirror UN, it's the diversity of price points that I am trying to demonstrate. Here are some numbers from their pricelist:

Excluding the 'Price upon Request' pieces, they have 106 prices listed, the cheapest is $5,900 and the most expensive is $155,000. Here's how they break down (I have used narrower ranges at the lower end and then widened them out). I'm not trying to demonstrate that they are even, just that there is something in each price point:

$5,000 - $7,500 - 16 pieces
$7,501 - $10,000 - 12 pieces
$10,001 - $15,000 - 8 pieces
$15,001 - $20,000 - 9 pieces
$20,001 - $25,000 - 10 pieces
$25,001 - $30,000 - 13 pieces
$30,001 - $40,000 - 11 pieces
$40,001 - $50,000 - 10 pieces
$50,001 - $70,000 - 8 pieces
$70,001 - $100,000 - 7 pieces
$100,001 + - 2 pieces

You're right your model hasn't changed list price but it has forced everyone to pay more, including distributors, AD's, and most importantly the consumers. Breitling had to invest money to produce their own in house movement. That was a necessary investment; can we imagine what would have happened if they didn't investment the time and money to create the B01?? Some of the investments that you are proposing aren't entirely necessary. Especially in this economic environment, to wastefully spend money for a few high end bells n whistles wouldn't be a prudent business investment in my opinion.

Entry level price points for watch companies that have the functions you are asking for are 2.5x more expensive than Breitling's entry level pieces. I don't think you can have an entry level piece at the current price points and also offer the exclusive pieces at the higher end of the range. What other watch company can say that they have done that successfully?

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"I don't own any watches, I just lease them"

First off, congrats Roff. You have ben a beacon of knowledge in a sometimes storm of noobs (myself incuded) and the arrogant.


I would have to agree with mfserge. I think Breitling is fine just where they are. Speaking for the lower-middlle class I find Breitlings to be fair-priced and something that, if saved for, could be attainable.Asking Breitling to introduce all these new high-end compilation pieces would ultimately raise the price for me and I don't want that!.

I have a new-found love for timepieces, mostly thanks to this site and it's knowlagable members (especially Roff) and I can appreciate, if not ever own, an expensive compilation. And if I ever have the fortune of owning such a piece, I would have no problems picking one of the many, many brands that offer them.

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SA Blue Dial Silver Subs Pro 2

Well IWC start's at $2,800 (Portofino Automatic).........

Zenith is a little higher (although cheaper ladies models), but they starts at $4,200 (Class Automatic) - and that's an inhouse movement.

I think that you have to separate the ultra high end movements from the mid range ($15,000+) pieces. The novelties (for want of a better description) are headline getters, they are effectively marketing pieces to get the name in the press, but producing them in more than one off pieces is a demonstration that the manufacture has confidence that these pieces aren't 'safe queens'.

And consider this......

The Breitling that currently produces pieces at these price points also produces a limited edition of one pocket watch every year for Basel that sells for a rumoured seven figure sum.

Shouldn't that rumored seven figure pocket watch be enough to get us in the press? Doesn't that say that Breitling has confidence in it's brand to produce and sell such an exclusive piece? Maybe their marketing firm needs to be fired, but creating a few high end complications is a pure waste in my opinion.

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"I don't own any watches, I just lease them"

It does, but it's a one off annual event, and it's a one off piece, and it's a pocket watch, all of which limits the appeal.

I don't think that it is the same as producing novelties for sale - a $1,000,000+ pocket watch is a safe queen!

We obviously have a different perspective, but that's OK - it would be a dull debate if we all agreed