FOR ANYONE LOOKING to sell their watch, the internet is awash with dealers who will buy it from you, but are you getting the market price?
Let’s face it, dealers have overheads like any business, and they need to turn a sustainable profit so, even with the hardest haggling, there will always be a mark-up that you’ll need to consider.
What you need is a private sale to the eventual end user, but without a huge circle of friends to ask how do you find a buyer, and how do you know one of your other friends wouldn’t have paid more?
What you really need is an auction, to make sure that the eventual buyer is the one who would have paid most.
Problem is, what with buyer’s premium paid on top of the hammer price and sellers fees and commission paid by you, as much as 40% of the total value of the watch may not be coming your way.
Traditional auctions can take weeks or even months to compile and even longer to pay out, and your watch will be out of your keeping, even out of the country, for all that time with no guarantee of a sale at the end of it. Suddenly that instant dealer cash looks more appealing, right?
Time for change
If only there were a way to sell in a modern auction format with no commission fees, a tiny buyer’s premium, speedy turnaround, and still hang on to your watch throughout the whole process.
Enter: Watch Collecting. This disruptive new auction platform launched in early 2021, and after only six months has sold more than 400 watches to a value in excess of £6.5m.
Sister company to Europe’s largest online car auction platform Collecting Cars, Watch Collecting brings the same streamlined approach to the watch market with seven day timed auctions.
Although it’s run 100% online, a whole team of passionate, knowledgeable, and trusted advisors are standing by ready to guide you through the process, whether buying or selling.
Partnering with Experian to verify buyers and sellers, Trustshare for escrow services, and the Art Loss Register to ensure watches are not lost or stolen, Watch Collecting is creating a safe space for collectors to trade with as little friction as possible. For more info, see watchcollecting.com. After only six months, Watch Collecting has sold more than 400 watches to a value in excess of £6.5m.
