Victoria Townsend is a freelance journalist. From the Gulf and Paris, she covered the watch industry in the Middle East for over a decade, before venturing into European and US-based media. Settled in Paris, she has written for Haute Time on-line, GMT Magazine Middle East (in English), FHH Journal on-line, International Watch Review (Editions Jalou), and more recently, Romanian-based Lifetime Watch Magazine. In 2017 she started her Instagram page @victoriainparis.
12. Where do you think the industry is going to be in 10 years?
After consulting my marketing wizard friend about this, we agreed on 2 key words:
luxury (jewelry) and personalization. He thinks technology and miniaturization are moving so fast we will be wearing paper-thin flap-over screens on our arms: all-in-one “information centres” that will comprise TVs, laptops, tablets, telephones AND watches, with technology over aesthetics. Even smart watches as we know them today will disappear. I’m not sure I would go that far, but I do agree with the fact that there will be no added value wearing a watch on your wrist that just counts the time…UNLESS it is to show your wealth and status, your bank account and position. This will favour niche markets, with development of luxury jewelled watches, or good mechanical watches -- not necessarily the most expensive -- that can be personalized. With nevertheless a limited number of enthusiasts who will still enjoy reading the time on a good mechanical watch, just for the pleasure, as for lovers of beautiful fountain pens or luxury sports cars.
There could be takeovers, with cheaper or average-priced brands decreasing or disappearing completely, in particular, those that depend upon current fashion trends which by their very nature are prone themselves to disappear. As for physical stores, there would probably be a necessity for eg the $500 – 5,000 range, for customers who will need to see, touch and listen to the watches “because every penny counts”. For budgets above or below that, everything is already on-line, from personalization to seeing how it looks on your wrist. And for very expensive jewellery watches over $500,000, the customer won’t care about trying it on before ordering it. Or he will call the brand who will fly to meet him/her with a few pieces to choose from.