While my watches all come from AD's, I have plenty of mates who buy on the grey market (hell, I've even bought online on behalf of mates of mine myself!), and provided you buy from a reputable source (,, etc) there is no problem at all IMO. It all depends if you consider that a risk you're willing to take. The key thing to remember when buying on-line (from a reputable dealer) is to realise that the discount you are getting on the sticker price essentially covers the fact that you have no warranty (at least not one that's worth anything), and should anything go wrong with your watch you'll have to just suck it up and pay Breitling to fix it. The grey market does not use Breitling service centres, so you run the risk of some guy who knows jack about your particular watch attempting to fix issues and all without access to genuine Breitling parts. What you definitely never want to do however is use a grey market vendors own warranty, like mrcheatle unfortunately did. Watches change hands all the time and if they could never be serviced once they'd moved on from the original owner, there'd be uproar. For an AD to say Breitling won't touch a watch like that is utter rubbish. The thing is, a grey market watch with no warranty is indestinguishable to Breitling to a watch that has simply been sold on to someone else on the second hand market.
I have mates who own perfectly genuine grey market watches and they've never had a problem with servicing at Breitling.
#REPUTABLE GREY MARKET WATCH DEALERS FREE#
You just have to pay for it (as opposed to having it done free of charge if it's under warranty from an AD), but you will still only pay exactly the same price as you would if your AD-purchased watch was out of warranty.
#REPUTABLE GREY MARKET WATCH DEALERS SERIAL NUMBER#
Also, in the comments below please feel free to clarify, or offer your own suggestions on how the traditional watch industry can best adapt to the fact that consumers want quick, efficient, and easy ways to buy watches.Breitling (certainly Breitling UK anyway) WILL and indeed DO service watches bought on the grey market, providing the serial number is intact. It will be interesting not just for one another, but also for the industry itself to see how the timepiece buying community self-reports on how they prefer to buy watches in this day and age. The point of this article isn’t to talk about the background of the watch industry’s current tough situation more, but I say all this to explain why we are asking the question about how you as consumers prefer to shop for watches. This “ask the audience question” seeks to understand how your online buying preferences meet those of fellow watch buyers.
Things need to change, things will change, and I think the consumer should have a voice in how the industry adapts. What is a problem, however, is how consumer behavior clashes with the expectations of the watch industry itself. This is basic consumer behavior and it would be odd if consumers did not follow the path of least resistance. The consumer is not to be blamed for seeking the most efficient (economical) solution to getting the item that they want. Please do not feel that I am somehow talking down to consumers for their buying preferences. The old way of doing business can’t exist anymore.
Many if not all people reading this who have purchased a watch in the last five years have likely either used a gray market dealer or negotiated a discount. Thick margins designed to pad the actually difficult task of traditional watch stores have made it possible for a massive discount economy to take place just outside the walls of the narrow system of “authorized dealer” sales. I’ve been talking about this since 2010 when I first asked if there is a “doomsday coming for third party watch retailers.” That is all happening now. Simple capitalism mixed with a globalized economy has laid utter ruin to the traditional watch industry’s core way of doing business that tends to be about selling wholesale directly to a retailer or using various distributors. Of course, there are people buying new watches in traditional brick and mortar stores, but few of them are paying retail prices. The often unspoken reality of 2016 is that people are buying mostly gray-market and pre-owned watches, and they are doing so mostly via internet means. Part of the context of this conversation is the fact that traditional watch retailers are mostly suffering in terms of perceived low consumer demand, but at the same time, the data seems to indicate that we are experiencing a time when demand for watches is higher than it has been in the last 30 years. It should not be surprising that aBlogtoWatch not only favors being able to purchase watches online, but is attempting to actively be part of the force that helps the traditional watch industry transition to more modern ways of doing business – many of which involve internet shopping.
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