Luxury Watch Veteran Upends Market With Pre-Owned Timepieces

Singaporean Tay Liam Wee is a member of the global luxury watch elite-his father Boo Jiang founded Sincere Watch, one of Singapore's largest watch retailers, in 1954 So how does Tay, 59, build on that legacy? Surprisingly, in used watches, with online and offline retailer WatchBox, which sells only pre-owned timepieces The global luxury watch industry has always shunned used watch sales for fear of cannibalizing new watch sales-aside from the auction of rare vintage collectible watches, which helps reinforce the notion that luxury watches are a good investment.

"The watch division in terms of sale is $300 million." That volume is a mere fraction of new inventory The site has actually been around for several years, started by U.S luxury watch industry veteran Danny Govberg, whose family has been in the watch and jewelry business since 1916.

The market for used watches is big-by some estimates it is $5 billion a year, about 10% of new watch sales of roughly $45 billion a year Some analysts estimate that the pre-owned market in premium watches could eclipse new sales in five years. . Source