Twenty years ago, you could walk into a Patek Philippe or Audemars Piguet boutique and come out with a Nautilus or a Royal Oak on your wrist. Until they, and others, came to the conclusion that they should rein in sales: scarcity breeds desire. So it was that, at certain stores, only a seasoned collector or longstanding customer could hope to leave with their chosen model, suddenly in limited supply and which – blame speculation – would be snapped up on the pre-owned market at twice retail price.
This left a golden opportunity for independents whose message, post-subprime crisis, was clear: come to us, we treat all customers the same and all our production is available to buy. It's how MB&F, H. Moser & Cie., Grönefeld and Greubel Forsey got started. Except fifteen years later, they find themselves in the same position: demand is too high, flagship products are detracting from the other collections and waiting lists are so long, the only solution is to pick and choose who gets what. What goes around, comes around.
H. Moser & Cie., which astutely positions the brand as "Very Rare", finds itself in a situation where it is now so successful that, from "Very Rare", its watches are "very hard to get." Furthermore, despite the well-known risks of becoming dependent on an iconic model, the Streamliner clearly dominates its other ranges.
Chief Executive Edouard Meylan doesn't deny the facts. He is, he says, doing his best to steer a motorboat so powerful, it's difficult to manoeuvre. "If we'd taken every order for the latest Streamliner we released, given our production capacity, we'd have an eighteen-year waiting list. Which would be ridiculous. So, we do our best. Yes, we do favour 50% to 70% loyal customers, because we know how passionate they are. We know them and they know us. We know they aren't speculators."
Speculation, the bubble that artificially forms around a model and could burst at any moment, "is beyond our control," Meylan admits, "although there are certain levers. When a customer sells one of their watches, we call them and we try to find out why. We also work with expert retailers who know who buys what and, more to the point, why. We're careful to bring in new Moser customers for each model, so that no model becomes the 'property' of a small group. But there's no magic formula. You have to know your customers."
No magic formula but safeguards, one of which is to keep production at levels which correspond to the brand and its DNA. "We manufacture around 3,500 watches a year. Ramping that up overnight to 7,000 would make no sense. And would be impossible, anyway. We don't have enough watchmakers, we don't have enough space and we can't magically double the number of machines."
Another safeguard is to keep a check on a particular line's success, so that it doesn't cannibalise the rest. Which, Edouard Meylan acknowledges, can be tricky. "I've always said we should reserve 35% of production for the Streamliner, no more, but it's not easy when demand is this high. This year it will be around 40% and even then we have our foot on the brake." He muses on how the H. Moser & Cie. community would respond to, say, a Streamliner Vantablack in steel… stand back, is all we can say.
