The Watch Gallery in Buenos Aires, Argentina, celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2008 and it was the country’s first watch-only boutique. At the time it was introduced, it was a risky gamble, but things have paid off very well, indeed.
I caught up with the Watch Gallery’s CEO, Nicolas Dobry, when he was in Miami, Florida recently.

ES: How's business?
ND: We started in 1998. At that time, we introduced a new concept which was to be specialized in watches. Until then, watches were sold in jewellery stores just as an accessory to their core business. We wanted to narrow the focus. There were two factors that influenced our growth – the economic situation of the country and the time it took the customer to understand going to a special store to buy watches. It took us at least three or four years for us to start to succeed.
We then started to grow consistently, from 2003, until today. There were some years where we were able to double our growth.
Last year, we did great until September, our sales were 30 – 35 percent above last year, but then the economic situation changed. Things have started to pick up, but business is not as fluid as it was before.





ES: What is the secret of your success?
ND: We have very good management; we are all young people with a new approach to the business. Secondly, our concept was very strong. I studied marketing at university and applied what I learned to today’s watch business. In today’s world, one has to narrow the focus as much as possible for the message to get across. Third, we have a good portfolio of brands. We have selected brands that cover almost every price category and consumers’ taste. In view of the fact that we are very aggressive and dynamic, we receive very strong support from the brands and that has created a great rapport with them, which allows us to develop all the different projects. The fact that we became the exclusive agency of Patek Philippe seven years ago was a very important milestone for us. We are very thankful to them as this allowed us to present ourselves in a completely different way.

ES: What do you like about your job?
ND: I love what I do. I started collecting watches when I was 15 years old. My grand-father was an officer and doctor in the French Army in the Second World War and he started to collect watches when he was a kid. I would stay with my grandparents from time to time and I would watch him admire his watches. I would look at his collection of watches, which he kept in a locked suitcase. I would sneak in and open the suitcase, then look at the watches. When I was 15 years old, I woke up and my grandfather came into the room with the suitcase and said, 'Today, you are 15 years old, and I would like you to have these watches while I am still alive.'
When I started to work, I bought more watches. When I was 19, I started to work in a company that was distributing luxury brands, among them a few brands of watches. I did that for some years before I started the Watch Gallery. I feel a lot of enjoyment in what I do because I love watches.

ES: What don't you like?
ND: I’m 36 and the business requires me to travel a lot, probably 20 – 30 percent of the year, to go to Switzerland and to the fairs. I used to love travelling, but I am married now, and I want to settle down more.

ES: What is the biggest challenge facing your store right now?
ND: The unstable worldwide economy is a huge challenge right now. This will impact the luxury watch market one way or another. The second thing is the sloppy economy of Argentina, which makes it very difficult to do business in a sustainable way. It requires me, as a manager, to take very quick moves and sometimes that is a little bit dangerous.
On the other hand, during these last years, the watch market has experienced significant growth, part of that bubble has burst, and during this time most of the brands opted to increase their average price points. The prices of watches went up significantly over the last five years. During this time, while we will go through one or two years of recession, it will not be easy to defend that level of pricing.





ES: How do you market your store?
ND: We communicate through three different means of communication. One is printed media, magazines and newspapers, which is the most traditional. Secondly, we use direct marketing, we are very keen on press and public relations. About three years ago, we decided to focus on press, PR and direct marketing activities, because the traditional communi-cation media is so saturated, not only from watch brands, but from other luxury products and services. This makes it very difficult to get the message out and create brand awareness.
In the same way we discovered that there was a need for a watch specialty store, we also realized that there was a gap for a watch specialized retail magazine. We established a strategic partnership with a publishing company and created the first local watch magazine for consumers, called the Watch Gallery Magazine, and now it is regional. The magazine is distributed all over Latin America.
At the beginning, we would give the magazine away free, but now it is very successful. We do still send it out as a gift to our VIP customers.

ES: Who is your customer?
ND: Our customers are mostly males, high economical position, the age ranges from 30 – 70. 70 percent of our customers are male, 30 percent are women. The women’s market is growing at a much faster pace. We are putting a lot of effort towards developing the ladies market.

ES: How important is customer service?
ND: Customer service is crucial. If you want to develop a consistent relationship with a customer, you have to make sure they receive perfect service. Their shopping experience has to be superb, but also the after-sales service has to be fantastic. Our message is based on the fact that the watches we sell are works of art and they have to preserve them in the right manner. For that, we have our own service team – it’s an outsourced company, but they work exclusively for us. The average turnaround time depends on the brand and the kind of service, but it’s between one and four weeks.

ES: How do you do training?
ND: We do both in-house training, but all the brands give periodic training to our staff. We have sent our salespeople to visit the brands in Switzerland as well. I don’t think the sales professionals can have a complete perspective of the business unless they go to see how these works of art are created.

ES: How important is security?
ND: Security is a huge issue. We spend big amounts in private security and in insurance. There were times when insurance companies didn’t want to write insurance for watches because of the high rate of losses that stores experienced.
We were robbed about eight years ago. We have increased security dramatically. We installed video cameras, we redesigned the whole security protocol internally. We installed security glass in our showcases, anti-vandalism laminates and so on.

ES: Are you optimistic about the future?
ND: I am. As in every crisis, there is always an end to it. We believe that there are always opportunities in every crisis and it’s a perfect time to gain market share. It’s a good time to work internally and maximize our own operations, so when the market gets better, we will be in a great position to take advantage of it.

ES: What is your favourite watch?
ND: Among my collection, I have a lot of antique watches and I have a lot of modern watches. My favourite watches are among the ones that I received from my grandfather because they have sentimental value. There is an antique Patek Philippe and an antique Omega that he used to wear that I love. If I speak of modern watches, I love oversized watches like Hublot.


Facts and figures
Name: The Watch Gallery
Location: Buenos Aires, Av. Alvear 1807 1er piso of #103, Argentina
How long: 10 years
Employees: 10
Size of store: 110 square metres
Average sale: US$15,000 - US$20,000
Range of price: US$300 – the sky is the limit
Best selling watch: Patek Philippe
Brands: 25 brands
Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, Ulysse Nardin, De Grisogono, Hublot, Cvstos, Zenith, Chanel, Bulgari, Piaget, Breitling, TAG Heuer, Omega, Maurice Lacroix, Chronoswiss, Porsche Design, Longines, Baume & Mercier, Anonimo, U-Boat, Dior, Gucci, Hamilton, Tissot, Michele, Philip Stein, TW Steel, Mido.
www.watch-gallery.com


Source: Europa Star August-September 2009 Magazine Issue

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