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A widely discussed report on the secondary watch market by analysts Luxeconsult Sàrlhas predicted that the secondary watch market will meet and surpass the new retail market, reaching a value of €79bn by 2033. As well-researched as this report is, it does beg the question, has the secondary market even scratched the surface yet?

Watch Collecting is the sibling company of Collecting Cars, and the two industries make for an interesting comparison. Collecting Cars is two years older and has sold over £380m of cars compared to over £34m watches at Watch Collecting. The car market is far bigger than the watch market with global figures recorded in trillions, rather than billions.

Exact figures for the car market are hard to pin down but in the UK in 2021 there were 1.65m new car sales, but 7.5m used cars sold, 4.5 times more. In the same year, globally, considering values, not volume, Luxeconsult Sàrl estimate the primary watch market to be worth €52bn with the pre-owned market only €25bn. If the pre-owned car market is almost 5 times that of retail and yet the pre-owned watch market is only half retail, that is a lot of ground to make up.

The idea of trading watches back and forth is relatively new. Watch brands sell their products on their longevity, ‘looking after them for the next generation’. Cars are never promoted this way and are treated by the manufacturers as consumables that you will buy, drive for 3 years and then sell on, only to buy the latest model. This means the car market is built for pre-owned trading with both the culture and infrastructure in place. The watch market is still growing and evolving, with owners hunting for the best places to transact and struggling to understand the true market value of their timepieces. For cars, numerous price guides exist, suggesting values for each model based on age, condition, and sale route (Private, part-ex, auction etc). For watches, things are far more opaque with dealers never showing ‘sold’ prices and auctions hiding the returned value within a complex fee structure and ‘achieved’ prices.

At Watch Collecting we are all about transparency. The sold section clearly shows the amount the seller received for their watch, while a small and straightforward buyer’s fee makes it easy to work out how much you might have paid. With almost 2000 watches sold and more results each day, we are rapidly being seen as the market barometer, maybe ‘the’ reference guide of the future.

Our proposition is simple. Take a look at recent sales results. If you think ‘I would have paid that’, buy with us, if you think ‘I would have accepted that’, sell with us.

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