The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Just rushing into a meeting, but......

Got back from an AD visit and the B01 is being reduced here in Canada. Apparently positioned as a currency adjustment because of the strength of the C$, but only on B01 apparently.

I saw prices showing from $6,000, but not sure if that is pre or post adjustment.

Hm.

Wonder if that Breitling will pursue a similar policy in the US?

I've only been with the brand for six years and all I have never seen a Breitling-sanctioned price reduction. AD discounts, sure. But never an outright price reduction...it's always gone the other way.

I doubt it as it is being positioned as a currency adjustment. That implies the reduction is to bring pricing in line with the US given the relative strength of the C$ to the US$.

is this a hint that the sales figures for the B01 are low or lower than wanted?

I don't know whether that's the implication, although my contact did seem disappointed with how they were selling. The large quantity that they had in the display case could mean that they aren't selling, but could also mean that they are popular so they are stocking more.

I have heard some anecdoatal evidence that sales are disappointing, but of course we don't know actual sales or expected sales.

Very interesting that it would only apply to the B01. I can't think of a likely explanation for that, if really is a currency adjustment.

We had a currency adjustment here on May 1, prices seem to be down by at least 10% across the board as far as I can see.

The strange thing I've noticed is that while not all Breitling AD's stock the B01, those that do seem to hold at least 5 or 6 different models in stock at any one time. When you compare it to other models you are lucky to see 2 of the same model in most of the AD's near me.

Now whether this is due to Breitling and/or AD's expecting the B01 to absolutely fly out of the door (which would be a little odd considering the price point), or whether AD's have just wanted to carry a number of different variants as the B01 comes in a huge number of possibilities, I don't know. But either way, those AD's who stock the B01 seem to carry a pretty large stock of them.

Personally I think stocking a large number of watches in the £5K to £6K+ price range is a bit odd, considering that I know of two AD's near me who have had a £5800 Rolex SDDS in each of their windows for weeks now, and apparently they can't shift them. I would've thought that the (allegedly) "hard to get hold of" SDDS would be more likely to fly out the door than a similarly priced Chronomat B01 (that isn't remotely hard to come by).

Personally I just think AD's have overstocked on B01's (for some reason or another) and as turnover is important, I guess a few are considering a price reduction. I think it's more of an over-supply peculiarity myself.

_________________
Driver8

Site Moderator

I should have counted how many they had when I was in the other day, but it was an entire display case so 8 - 10 probably. I think that there were only two regular Chronomats which is the obvious other model that you would expect to see lots of with different dial variations. There were 5 display cases in all, including Bentley.

The watch does display well, I'll give it that. To my eye at least each variation looks different enough to merit carrying a number in the display case.