I wouldn’t bother. Waited for 2 hours today and was a few people from the front only for some people in the store to start threatening the staff. Even though there were watches left they stopped selling and dispersed the queue.
Sounds like the same people queue every day.
So the journalist has decided to go on live chat to talk to the bod who does customer service, and thinks he's got a scoop? What sort of insider info on distribution strategy does he imagine the guy answering live chat queries has? It may turn out to be true by happenstance, but what a ridiculous approach to evidencing it.
Passed the Covent Garden store earlier today while going to Apple. They had some in this morning but all sold out within a few hours.
It seems the demand is still strong!
Not sure what you mean by 'chrono not working', but I've seen a fake Moonswatch and the chrono second hand works, although I don't think the sub-dials are linked to it - Edit : The 1/10th second subdial is, apparently, a 24 hour time, despite the markings, but the minute subdial works.
The S in the crystal will be hard to spot in eBay photos, the other points are true, but some of the problems with colour mismatches shown, for example, in the video earlier in this thread, are overstated (and no doubt will get fixed, as will the typo - Supposedly an easy spot was the missing accent on the Tachymetre, but the one I saw I had it).
The easiest spot might well be the indentation on the lug where the back removes.
Fake :
Genuine :
M
Last edited by snowman; 25th June 2022 at 16:22.
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
^^^ The crown on that fake looks very poor.
FLY is spelt incorrectly too by the looks of it, FIY.
If anyone is looking for a Pluto or Sun, there is one of each in Oxford.; £1475 and £950 respectively!!
Sent from my iPad using TZ-UK mobile app
I walked past the Oxford Street store a couple of hours ago and there was a big queue forming.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Do people queue every day? Just curious is it speculative or are regular deliveries being made and they have been tipped off?
Sent from my Pixel 4a using Tapatalk
Regular deliveries and people getting tipped off. It was clear a lot of the people in the front of the queue were known to the security and store staff.
I guess Swatch don't care as they're making easy sales but I really wish you had to provide some ID or similar so that you couldn't just keep buying and flipping these.
But looking at this graph of sales from stockx.com for the Mission to Mercury (which I would imagine is one of the more desirable ones), prices are steadily dropping still.
I may be totally wrong but it looked as though those in the front of the queue were being paid a few quid to be there and buy on behalf of someone else. As I said, I may be totally wrong but that was the impression I got.
My enthusiasm for one has gone from moderate excitement around the launch date to general indifference a few weeks later. The longer Omega drip feed a limited number of shops the faster my interest fades.
The risk is not that they lose potential buyers like me - I'm sure they couldn't care less - but that the general QC issues become obvious, and so new buyer numbers rapidly drop off. This is possibly a one-trick-pony partnership, and with Swatch watches not known for looking tidy after a few months I'd have thought it would make sense to sell by the bucket load while they can.
Despite being less than an impressed with one of the the broadly similar 'Colors of Nature' watches, I'd still like the Mars Moonswatch, even if it's just for the novelty value. But it will have to be at RRP or below. My time will come -- eventually.
My impression is that Swatch are having production difficulties and delays.
Had a rare outing in London today so thought I'd brave the queues and see if I could bag one of these Moonswatchs. Boy was I not prepared to witness what I did. I rocked up to the Oxford Street store at 10am just as the store was opening. I'd guess there were 40-50 people in the queue ahead of me, no sweat. But, there was a group of 15-20 blokes standing at the front who were causing quite a fuss, from what I could hear. I waited for half an hour and barely any movement in the line, them it became clear what was happening. Basically the group of lads at the front were pushing in, buying watches, coming out, transfer the watch box from the swatch bag to rucksack (or similar) then go back in and buy more. Repeatedly. I reckon between this small group of people they must have hoovered up half the days delivery. And barely anyone else got a look in. Security did absolutely nothing to stop them. So 50 mins I waited, then they ran out of colours (only Pluto's left) and I gave up, it takes the preverbial when Swatch are allowing this crap to take place. And the cherry on the cake, one of this group of guys rocks out the shop then tries to sell one of his to the line of people in the queue, for a substantial mark up of course. Utter bollocks, I'm not playing these games, I'm out.
Pathetic from Swatch and their security. I agree, I wouldn't even buy one at RRP on principle (even if I hadn't gone off them as I now think they look like tat).
That's exactly what I saw last week when I walked past last week, which made me wonder if they were being paid a few quid to be there. Although I would have put their ages at under 20. Of course i have absolutely no proof of this and I may have totally misread the situation.
Last edited by coredriller; 29th June 2022 at 14:50.
Maybe everyone should buy the fakes/homages (hopefully the outright branded fakes will disappear soon) on Aliexpress and cut the rug out from under Swatch.
If they're effectively creating (or at least facilitating) a black market for these watches, I don't really have any sympathy for them.
Added to which at least you'll only pay £30 for a £15 watch rather than £300+ for a £50 one...
I no longer have any interest in the Moonswatch, as many others have said.
M
Last edited by snowman; 29th June 2022 at 15:50.
Breitling Cosmonaute 809 - What's not to like?
Totally agree. Any enthusiasm I had for these is long gone. I assumed they would be a bit of novelty amongst watch enthusiasts... not absolutely ruined in the way they have been through how Swatch have botched the entire launch and distribution. They could easily have done this through something like the Nike SNKRS app which opens a draw when a new item launches, to be eligible to buy them. A fair way of doing it.
This is intriguing and very surprising to me that Swatch would continue to open the shop at all under these circumstances.
If they cannot sell safely via these boutiques then they need to stop selling via the boutiques.
I presume that this (or similar) is the reason that the Carnaby Street store hasn't sold the Moonswatchs for weeks now. It wasn't just a matter of overcrowding.
The fact that the shop was allowed to stay open with this happening seemingly brings the shop management, Swatch, and Omega into disrepute. Buy continuing to trade and sell to this gang, they are in effect condoning and encouraging the behaviour.
If any force or threats were used or made by the gang then it also means that the shop management, Swatch, and Omega are condoning criminal activity.
Last edited by markrlondon; 29th June 2022 at 20:31.
Passing through London on Monday, and always planned to try but no way any more. Too old to be playing, or indeed witnessing games like this.
I genuinely don't understand why they don't just release them online now...in batches whenever available?? This in person model is not working, well it's only working for the flippers.
Fiasco.
When demand > supply it does rather bring out the worst in people. Just more obvious in this instance where the scalpers are very much visible to the genuine buyers. But no different to other parts of the watch market in terms of the outcomes for buyers.
I still want a Jupiter but am trying to get one on Ebay for no more than retail + cost of train ticket + cost of travel/queuing time. So my target price is £400.
The online shop would spend most of its time sold out. Can you imagine the outcry that gets directed at Timefactors but with literally a thousand times more voices!
Right now the fuss is at arm's length, at the boutiques, but if it was online it would make the situation way more public and way worse for the decision makers in Swatch Group.
The truth is there's never any good way to manage this when demand exceeds supply. But condoning and effectively encouraging gangs, threats, and possibly violence at their shops is as bad as it gets.
But my point is, there are already loads of things that pop in and out of sale online. It's how a lot of releases, especially record releases work. People take their chances. People can complain online, but they always do.
Online would remove the actual in person stuff that seems to be happening. You say it's at arm's length. But for the poor fuckers working in the shops, it's very real.
Well guess thats the other cockup. Swatch should never of told people they would soon be available online in the first place
Oh I'm not disagreeing with you!
I was being cynical about reasons to not merely allow this to continue but to have not stopped it as soon as it began.
But they're not Swatch Group decision makers are they... ;-)
There's no good way to deal with demand exceeding supply but this (so far) works well for those at the top. And possibly for those lower down who are being paid off.
Of course, (and I meant to say this before) the far better way to deal with demand exceeding supply is to increase supply, but the hints are that Swatch are having ongoing difficulties making this happen reliably.
Yes, quite so. :-)
Last edited by markrlondon; 29th June 2022 at 21:02.
Yes, indeed! (Although it wouldn't change the debacle at boutiques).
Perhaps it would have been better to always sell online and skip the boutiques. That way it would be more practical to limit sales to, say, one each per address. There'd still be complaints, of course. But hindsight is 20:20.
Here you go.. should be able to bag one well within your target price :-)
https://stockx.com/swatch-x-omega-bi...so33c100-brown
I've personally got no interest in them, also i'm not sure why people are going so crazy as they're not limited editions.
My 2cents for what it's worth.