The gray market is the massively growing watch industry, which is gaining popularity due to the low prices offered on the authentic products by the high-end brands. The gray market is highly accessible with great services. It is because they offer prices to the customers on website and local shops, but the brand pages do not offer the price for the watch, so people prefer to visit the gray markets to find out the rates.
These are known as the authentic products, which are sold through the unreliable or unauthorized source. If you prefer to buy a watch from gray market, it will not include any warranty cards from the factory and you will get lower resale prices for the watch when compared to the ones bought from the authorized dealers.
However, the gray market watches are prepared by the luxury brands, the authorized dealers will deny the warranty service in case of any repair or fault. Gray market watches are sold by the dealers who have excessive inventory and is often tracked from the overseas. If you plan to buy a watch from the gray market, it is a great task to identify the date of manufacture or what happened to the watch during its process of delivery between various distribution points and reaching the unauthorized dealers.
The watch might have needed the repairs for any faults during its journey from different distribution points and the unauthorized repair offices might have changed the branded parts to the fake ones.
HOW TO RECOGNIZE THE GRAY MARKET WATCH?
It is very hard to identify the signs of a gray market watch, because these are the authentic brand pieces:
- If you choose to purchase the watch online and you find the discounted offers on brand new watches then it is the sure sign that the dealer is unauthorized.
- These watches are available without any authorized warranty card or dealer’s stamp.
- The authorized dealers do not agree to service your watch if your watch needs any parts to be repaired or requires an overall service.
- All these steps stop the manufacturer from identifying the authorized dealers who sold those watches to the gray market.
- There are many websites who are the unauthorized dealers and belong to the category of gray market. The highest grossing website is Chrono24.
- Other unauthorized dealers include the following Jomashop.com, IconicWatches.co.uk, and Authenticwatches.com. These websites and watch dealers sell the products at low prices and buy products from the original dealers which they were unable to sell.
So, decide now for yourself whether you prefer to buy gray market watches or you prefer to buy original watches from authorized dealers with complete warranty card and repair facilities along with insurance.
Robert Kandinsky is a wannabe watch expert, founder of Swisswatchesreplica.co blog and an avid wristwatch collector with years of experience in luxury watches business.
