Watch Repair

[mosesbotbol]

Originally Posted by wayner123

While it may be great to offer such a service, there are some really good US horologists/watch service people that do well. I think the big hang up for many people would be overseas shipping. Customs can be a real pain sometimes.

What was included in the $150? That sounds pretty cheap if you consider most factory services are $350+ Did they do a total disassembly of the movement? Did they provide a ticker of before and after to show the accurancy improvements?

I am working on the shipping part with Customs. I think we can declare the item as something we worked on (with pro forma invoices) and customer already owned (along with the sending watch to us). Normally, I had been just carrying them on a plane, but then thought "why don't we actually do this as a service rather just favors for friends" and make a couple of bucks?

Another route is to target just complicated movements and old watches. We have one guy who is a watchmaking rock star, but we'll have to expand beyond him. We can retain one or two more guys similar to him and actually "sell" that they are working on the watches. It may make it more expensive, but for the watches that need that level of expertise could work. He actually teaches students who'll end up at Rolex, etc...

Not sure where to go with this. I don't think we could get to a 100 watches a month just due to their pre-existing commitments. When Patek or Longines calls, we get bumped unless we start paying top for services then goes any kind of profit.

Please keep your stories and ideas coming. Thanks so far!