The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Just wanted to see if anyone has actually purchased a Breitling from Costco.

Just heard that a Distributor form Italy has been selling them to Costco. Don't know for sure if that's accurate or not, but I do know they are EVERYWHERE!!!

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Super Avenger
Chrono-Matic 49
SuperOceanII
Navitimer World
Bentley GT

If that's true, whoever the Italian distributor is they are taking a very big risk with their livelihood because if Breitling SA get wind of it, they could quite easily shut them down. Selling to grey market sellers (even a big company like Costco) is a BIG no-no.

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Yeah, but dollars to donuts it was as a result of the big shake up in Italy last year. If you recall there was a load of former AD stock from Italy sold through eBay, I'm betting that some also got wholesaled off to the grey market. Breitling doesn't seem to buy stock back when terminating ADs.

interesting i had no idea. in my opinion they should buy the stock back. it would shut down the avenue for the grey market stuff. seems like short term thinking on BSA part if you ask me

Breitling has no interest in shutting down the grey market.

I have said it before, you could kill grey market (or the vast majority of it) very quickly:

1) Breitling buys a watch from the grey market (obviously not admitting that they are Breitling)
2) Check the serial number to find out which distributor it was sent to
3) Find out from the distributor which AD the watch was sent to
4) Terminate the AD for breach of contract

Do that a handful of times and you will have far, far less availability in the grey market.

The problem is that the only way that some ADs can achieve their sales targets is to inflate turnover through the grey market, and if they consistently miss targets then Breitling yanks their AD status anyway so the ADs have nothing to lose. The problem is effectively caused by over proliferation of ADs / unrealistically high sales targets.

I purchased a chrono-cockpit from Costco over a year ago. Came with everything except warranty card. Its been a great watch, well within COSC spec. Bought at an unbelievable price. Started near market price and bought a year later at which time it had been reduced three times in thousand dollar increments.

Before that my most expensive watch purchases was about $700.00 for a Victorinox, which to me was extravagant even though I had over 30 "lower end" quartz watches. If it wasn't for Costco, I would not have entered the luxury watch market. Came with Costco's warranty, which basically states that if you are EVER unhappy with the purchase you can return it for what you paid for it.

you see right there is the issue. i understand that breitling needs to make money afterall they are a business. but why not just keep the brand pure and be tighter with the AD's on discounts as oppose to forcing their numbers.

Because business is all about the bottom line.

sure i get it the more you sell the more you make. but in this case its a luxury item. youre not pumping shoes like Nike. call me an idiot but brand prestige and exclusivity mean more in this kind of market than anything else.

here is a good example, look at chanel. the purses are never discounted and they are sold exclusively through their own boutiques or in a highend store with their boutique inside (look at nieman marcus for example). the mentality they have is take it or leave it. lets be honest they face alot of other competition just like breitling. and its next to impossible to buy the stuff grey market. to me this just seems like a better approach for breitling. they should identify the markets they want to hit and keep a tighter hold on inventory, even if that means creating a false sense of demand. to me it makes no sense to make your distribution chanel take "x amount" of inventory and then if they cant sell it not take it back. this just causes this whole grey market situation. now the dealers are forced to dump it.

breitling needs to get more granular with their marketing. identify what watches do better in what geographical locations and send those watches to those places. dont create a ton of inventory, trying to be everything to everybody. just concentrate on a couple of core pieces and dominate with that. also making sure that their AD's they pick are a certain distance apart from each other. from an advertising perspective i can understand this, since it creates exposure but from a sales perspective it creates turmoil for the dealer. now you have 2 guys accross the street from each other trying to undersell each other.

just my 2 cents