Quote:
Originally Posted by Ihooper88
What is the deal with there being huge waiting list for Rolex sports watches? Surely a company like Rolex could meet the demand if they wanted to?
Wait lists are a myth... you're not getting any steel sports Rolex unless you are a regular ongoing customer, UNLESS you just happen to walk in to the store when they put one in the case as a matter of luck.
You can get to know the dealer and hopefully garner enough good will to get a call from him when something comes in... like what happened to me when I scored my Air King, but more than likely production is not going to increase beyond where it is today... though the 'mix/ratio' of steel sports to other models might change going forward. My same AD did also offer me a 'no date' submariner, but they want way over msrp... which they are allowed to do when a watch is 'pre-owned'... my air king was NEW so that means msrp only.
Rolex is opening a new factory soon, but it probably doesn't mean more piece volume but might mean more parts/movement volume. Production is already around a million pieces per year... which is plenty before you begin entering market saturation and therefore lower overall demand.
What is happening is that some dealers are making/have made deals where the high demand watches are being sold to gray market seller's directly before they make it into the AD's display cases... either by negotiations with the re-seller to split profits or by setting up a re-seller (eg: family member, close friend etc).
Here is an example... a 126710blro has an MSRP of $9500us... that watch costs the dealer roughly $4750-$5200us... the gray market sells this same watch as 'pre-owned' with no warranty for roughly $18,000us. All you have to do is follow the monies.
That being said, the biggest reason that there is little stock for sale at MSRP in authorized dealers show rooms is because the Chinese market has absolutely exploded for steel sports watches within this last year and they are literally buying every single piece they can get they're hands on.
There are some reports where a Chinese buyer will come in and buy an AD's entire Rolex shipment as soon as it hits that dealer... regardless of what's in the shipment... just so they can get the 'hard to get' pieces. That is the world we live in right now.
Last edited by MSchu18; 08-10-2019 at 02:31 PM.