I've bought from them on 4 occassions and one watch had a winder that came out in my hand upon opening. Now whilst that alludes to the prep not being up to scratch, but equally they returned my money upon receipt of the watch. the others are all ticking along nicely.
did get a price for one of mine off them (Heuer Silverstone reissue) and the offer was pretty low; but upon checking they had 2 already in stock and it's not the type of thing to fly off the shelf, so i'm surprised they offered at all.
they turnover a massive amount of stock and some deals won't go smoothly. Echo Lewis's comments on Watches.co.uk, far less flexible but also have some lovely stuff in great condidtion.
They have a £10k watch in the Leeds store I've got my eye on. It's been there since it opened. And brand new it's £15k.
Might buy it if it suddenly appears in a sale at say £7k.
I might do if it's still there in September (40th birthday)
I first bought from them in 2008 when they only had the Maidstone store and since thenhave had another two.
I read that they recently had a £10m venture capital injection taking their stock up to 3000 plus watches. I would guess with all the additional boutique openings the end plan is to either sell up completely to VC or float
Visited the Bluewater store after it opened and wasn't impressed . Staff knew very little about watches and nothing on display had prices visible
I've sold 3 watches to them. With all 3 they made the lower end of their potential offers and I rejected all 3. They came up a reasonable amoun on two and what I wanted on the other (was a BLNR tHough). I was happy and they were straight forward to deal with.
The wait for the money is a bit of a pain.
I had the prospectus through when they were raising money grouch VCT's and I though it was a good business model back then.
I've been dealing with WF for a few years now. Overall my experience has been positive. The only down side was when I visited the Royal Exhange store and met probably the most obnoxious and ignorant salesman I've ever come across.
Now, I've spent me professional life surrounded by arrogant, self opinionated salesmen but this individual had them all beat!
My "remote" dealings with my "usual" salesman have always been positive and friendly. Maybe because we've done a lof of business together, we can have a bit of banter about the prices and usually come to a mutually agreeable deal.
Interesting to read that others we contacted about the VCT. Maybe my purchases didn't put me in the "high roller" category lol
In saying that, I did get an invite to their annual golf tournament and an invite to Salon QP.
I've tried a few watches at the Royal Ex, they always looked good enough, polished so as to appear in optimum condition, some a little too tickled though... which I guess some buyers might be bothered by?
I think from a buying perspective and as a relative novice shops like this can offer a good alternative. I would be very happy to have a good quality 2nd hand watch, and it might be the only option if the model is discontinued. I certainly would not have the confidence to spend a lot of money on an ebay watch - I just wouldn't have enough knowledge to ensure what I was getting was genuine.
I appreciate that you pay a premium at these shops but you do get a watch which is genuine and which has been serviced. That peace of mind is worth a bit more in my view (speaking strictly as a novice).
Of course a better answer may be to buy from the good people on this very forum but there is a 2 month wait to gain entrance to Sales Corner which may be too much for some people.
Don't expect it to be serviced. In my experience they tend to turn them round quickly, ship them out and deal with any issues under warranty if/when noticed by the buyer.
I've sent more than one watch back to have problems sorted within days of purchase which, to be fair, they have done quickly and efficiently.
You may be right however on enquiring recently about a watch I specifically asked that question and was assured that it had. Of course I have no way of verifying whether that was true or not....