In the past few years, there has been a rise in something that winds up watch buyers all over the world. The waiting list! This is where an authorised dealer controls the order in which their customers receive certain models of watches. This blog is going to explain why they exist and some top tips for you as a buyer.

Watches In High Demand

 The first reason that waitlists exist is that demand for a certain watch exceeds the supply that a manufacturer can deliver. If 100,000 people want, and can afford, to buy a watch, but the manufacturer can only make 50,000 a year, it would take 2 years to supply enough watches.

Waitlists are put in place to ensure that watches are delivered in the sequence that customers order them in. This is thew case for many desirable watches now. Most Rolex sports models have such long waiting lists that dealers are no longer able to add new customers to their waitlists.

a steel Rolex GMT Master II Rootbeer 126711CHNR with red and blue bezel, black dial

Increasing Demand and Pricing

Watch manufacturers can also reduce the supply of watches to generate additional demand for their watches. They use waiting lists as a way of managing the supply of watches to customers. This increased demand gives the manufacturer more scope to increase prices. If the brand can only make 10,000 watches, but it has demand for 100,000 of them, it can push the price up to the point where only 10,000 want the watch. By limiting how many watches they make of a certain model, a brand can dictate the price, as long as there is the demand to sell them all.

IWC Double Chronograph Pilot's Watch Double Split Seconds Top Gun Black Ceramic

It's Hard to Increase Supply

The factories in which watches are made are high-tech, full of complicated machinery, and are very expensive. They also take a long time to build. For example, Rolex could probably sell an extra 200,000 Submariners a year, but it would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars and many years to build an additional factory. By the time they complete a new factory, demand for their watches might have decreased, and the factory not worth the investment.

Luxury watches are also assembled by very skilled watchmakers. It takes many years of training to become a watchmaker. There are not many watchmaking schools and only a handful of watchmakers are trained each year. It’s therefore very difficult for a brand to increase production by hiring more watchmakers, because there aren’t any. This is actually one of the biggest issues facing the British watchmaking industry. We don’t train many watchmakers in the UK, and those that are trained here are usually hired by the big Swiss brands.

Czapek Antarctique

Managing Clients

Some brands also use waitlists to manage who is able to own their watches. Many brands say that they want their watches to be owned by people who are going to wear them rather than flippers (those that immediately sell new watches with waitlists). We’ve heard that some of the larger brands and dealers are starting to police this more rigorously.

What Can You Do About Waitlists?

Unfortunately, it’s not really the case that waitlists work on a first-come-first-served basis. Most authorised dealers choose to allocate watches to their best customers. We have seen many instances where a dealer will quickly allocate a high-demand watch to a customer that regularly buys watches from them, even if there are customers who joined the queue for a watch before them.

With the general downturn in demand for watches, waitlists for the most popular watches are starting to shrink, and lots of buyers are choosing not to purchase watches when it’s their turn. If you are serious about buying a watch that currently has a waitlist, it’s always worth going to introduce yourself to your authorised dealer. You might get lucky, and you might be able to get a watch much sooner than you think. This has happened to me.

You can also buy new watches on the grey market – from a non-authorised dealer who re-sells a new watch. For the past few years, this has been the only place to get some of the most covetable new watches. It is often the case that you will end up paying over the RRP for a watch via this route, and we would urge you to be very cautious if you are thinking of doing this.

There are obviously some watches that will always have waitlists, and if you really want one of those, waiting for it will make its arrival that much more enjoyable.

Members of The Watch Collectors’ Club get access to buying advice, so if you need help deciding which watch to buy next, please consider a membership to our club. We are here to make sure you get the most from your love of watches.

Patek Philippe World Timer 5230G-001