eddhead

congratulations at breaking thru 5k... oh damn!

1. Pam 029/2892 (whatever the predecessor to this board is called) 2. Eddie Lee 3. I am wearing it today. I love this watch.

Thanks for taking the time you did a great job. IMO posts like these are valuable for two reasons... the comparison itself was great, and the follow-up from other members tends to be very provocative.

that's what i thought.

yes, but they are all water. there is no issue around truth in advertising, and there is no intent to mislead. I am sure he does... but not everyone does. I mean just look at the questions that arose from asian eta 28-- ... when i first read it i asked myself wtf is that? this one gets me too, which goes to the point i.e. truth in advertisising.

I hope not to. Please see this as constructive criticism.

Which to me raises another interesting point. Look, the dealers on this board are reputable and honest. And some undergo vigilent QC processes before shipping. Good for them. But in other cases, we too often excuse less than exemplary QC, and breakage issues by rationalizing that most dealers drop ship. I do not mean to sound unreasonable but as a consumer is that really my problem? Just as it is my responsiblilty to pick my dealer, it is the dealer's responsiblity pick their supplier. Or find some other way to ensure the quality of the goods they ship. My job is to pay for the watch. The dealer's jop is to deliver a working product that looks and perfoms to the standards it was advertised at. How they do it is not my concern. I work with the dealer, not the supplier. The dealer's job is to find the watch understanding that the quality of the merchandise wll factor into his/her reputation as a provider. They are accountable for managing the sales process. One final editorial comment. This board's management rightfully goes to great lenghts to not endorse specific dealers. None the less, we as participants implicitly endorse the dealers who pariticpate here through our favorable review. We ofen encourage new visitors to use these dealers , and castigate those who go elsewhere and get ripped off, sometimes going as indicating they deserved it. Fair enough. But if that is the track we are going to take, we owe it to the community at large to ensure that standards around proof in adverstising are maintained. Look, let me re-emphesize.. by and large the dealers who participate here deliver fair value... a good product at a fair price. But the marketing aspect of the process can at times border on the mis-leading. Terms like "1:1", "perfect", "Asian ETA" are confusing and inappropriate. Maybe it is the result of english being a second lannguage to some, but once one dealer uses those therms, the exagerations tend to escalate as others feel the pressure to follow suit or run the risk that consumers will not recognize their products as carrying eqaul value.

I completely agree. This is a great post and a great topic for dialog.

Really? Because, while I know the board does not officially sanction dealers, the prevailing wisdom and ongoing commentary from the membership is that if you buy a watch from "one of our trusted dealers" you will be OK. I am not suggesting we are NOT ok with this advertising, but it is at least a bit misleading.

100% agree. I am not the most knowledable authority on this stuff but still, the USD 128 PO really confused me until I read the various threads on it today.

I am looking for one too, and this is definetly a finalist.. the only thing I am not crazy about is 4x optical zoom, but i guess there are tradeoffs.

Nice watch and great pics. I am so getting this. Now a stupid question.. is the Josh version the same? I ask because unless i am miss-reading something, the movements may be different. Thanks.

IMHO, this post is spot on.

sounds like a great marketing schpiel.. "come to TTK where you get the flash... without spending the cash... (Crazy Eddie face) prices are innnnsaaannneee!!"

I think you have some valid points, especially with respect to the self perpetuating life style of the shallow and aimless (hello) but I am not sure I agree with your conclusions on the potential effect this may have on our little hobby. IMO, luxury brands like Rolex and Lous whatever are quite serious about the pressure they put on counterfiters because they view them as a threat to thier most valuable asset.. their brand and their reputation. It is the same reason that prestigous companies are so anal about protecting service, trade and copyrights as well as patents. This proprietary stuff is very important to them, and they will do whatever they can to protect it. Fortunatly for the rest of us, given the global nature and distribution capability of the counterfit market, and the resources that would be required to police it, they fight an uphill battle. Just my humble opinion.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/washingt...d-buchwald.html Probably not very interesting to most people, but I always enjoyed his columns. His life story is fascinating and a testament to how far you can go in life if you are smart have drive, and believe in yourself.

Dealer is excellent. Suggest you look at some of the reviews in the dealer review section.

agreed that conditions of a free market include knowledge and access from both the consumer and seller, lack of price collusion fraud and lack of govt involvment. Also agreed that Free markets are utiopia... (see above).. still free market principles, including supply and demand economics are the foundation of our global capitalist economy. In fact the WTC's mandate is to ensure that systemic barries to markets are mitigated. It doesn't always work to perfection, but it remains a guiding principle, cartels and trusts not withstanding. Regardless of what has been expressed previously, I am not a liberterian, nor am I armed. And I certainly do not believe that the free market exists exactly as Adam Smith's model lays them out, but as it relates to global economy as a whole, I put a lot of credence in market dynamics and principles. So much for not responding further in public!

I agree with that statement, i.e. that there is no such thing as a truly free and open market (the statement about Americans feeling otherwise is an unfortunate generalization and blatently untrue). The Free market is a model.. and models never exist exactly as they are conceived in the real world. Nonetheless, the principles of a free market econony including supply and demand economics are major contributors and in fact the driving forces (Exxon-Mobile et al not withstanding) to the current capitist system you seem so fond of.

Thanks for the response. I am beginning to feel like I am hijacking the thread, so this will be my last public response. If you want to continue the conversation privately, please PM and I will give you my e-mail address. I do think you are missing my point, but that could be as much my deficiency in communicating it as anything else. In a free market, product supply and demand naturally move to a state of equlibrium (suppply = demand) through price dynamics. When the supply of a particular good exceeds the demand, prices tend to fall. That in turn spurs additional demand and results in a movement toward equilibrium. Conversely when demand exceeds supply, prices rise until equilibrium is achieved. That is the only definition of market dynamics... the sellers costs are not a consideration. This is not my definition, it is Adam Smith's who is often referred to as the Father of Economic thought. This theory is is foundation for micro and macro economic price modeling and is widely accepted by all including Friedman, Keynes, Marx, etc.. There are 5 conditions that must exist for a free market to exist, key among these are 1. No governent price regulations, 2. No seller price coersion, collusion, or fraud, 3. Buyers and sellers must all have compete and unencumbered access to the market. What I am saying is that the dealers in ShenZen do not have access to the market, i.e. they do not have the distribution channels to easily market their products to you and me. Instead, they rely on resellers such as the dealers who participate on this board, and we rely on those same dealers for our supply of watches. Hence, while the supply of goods available to our dealers is high, the supply of those same goods available to you and me is much lower because we do not have direct convenient access to ShenZen market (at least I don't). That is why our dealers can buy watches at a lower cost than we can. It is just supply and demand dynmaics. In effect, the ShenZen dealers are wholesalers, and our dealers are retailers That is how wholesaling vs. retailing always works. As I said above, we do not have access to the larger market and the those suppliers do not have access to us, so the point is moot. Our only access is to the supply provided by our dealers. That supply is the basis for our price point. Again, you are confusing profit with supply and demand dynamics. Price is a contributor to profit but profit is NOT a contributor to price. Economies of scale contribute to profit, but only contribute to price to the extent that such economies result in increased production and thus, more supply. In this case, where supply will exceed demand, prices will naturally fall. Price points are ALWAYS estabished by suppply and demand. I And what I am trying to say is that approach will only work if one of the following happens: 1. They all collude to raise prices 2. They are testing the market to see if other dealers will also respond with price increases 2. Current supply exceeds demand (and i am afraid that in certain cases that is what is happening) 3. They each independantly determine that they their current profit margins are not acceptable enough for them to stay in this business. If they raise thier prices and the price increases do not stick, the natural course would than be to exit the business.

Thanks for the reply but unless I am miss understanding you, I actually think it is you that is not really being clear. For one thing, you are using the term 'cost' to reflect multiple meanings. Dealers do not justify their cost.. they justify their price.. i.e. what we as consumers pay. Thier costs are reflected in thier expenses, i.e. how much they pay for thier products, including supply costs, marketing costs, breakage, customs losses, fraud, etc.. and in reality has little or no direct impact on the price they charge. Instead, the price is based on marketplace factors (which do no not include costs) such as supply and demand, and consumer perception of value added services such as customer service, communication and the ability to customize. Factor costs are not marketplace factors as they relate to price. You charge what the market is willing to pay. If that price does not cover your variable cost, you exit the market. That is the way a free market functions. True enough. Some of us take it on faith that price fixing does not occur with the dealers on this forum but in reality we have no way of knowing for certain. Following your example, if you raise your price to compensate for your loss, and have competition who sells the same product for the same price with the same service levels than you do, and that person does not raise his price, you will not sell a lot of watches, until he starts to run low on product. Perhaps that person does a better job with security, or has better breakage rates, or whatever... The game here is to control your expenses and your losses to the extent you can. If your costs are higher than yoru competiton for whatever reason, and you cannot compete on price for a like product, you are doomed. That is the nature of the market. You are comparing apples to oranges. The reason the Chanel j12 commands a much higher price is because the market perceives it as being a more quality product, not because it has a higher production cost. If there is no demand for the price at current prices, dealers will have no choice but to lower the price. If the margin than becomes unacceptable to them, they will stop making the watch. Again, that is how the market works I qualified that as an editiorial comment, meaning 'opinion' to justify the cosmic justice of the profit margin, but sinse you asked, the risk reward equation relates to production side dynamics, not consume side. The price of a good is determined by supply and demand. This is a high risk business. If, as a producer, you cannot achieve a profit (reward) that justifies your risk, you do not get in the busines. There is no direct influence on the final price to consumers. Indirectly however, I will give you that , if enough producers exit the business, supply relative to demand drops and prices rise. That would be the root cause, but not the direct cause. The direct driver would be lower supply. But the suppliers in ShenZhen do not have access to the same markets our dealers do. That lack of access and distribution capability restricts the demand.. they effectively act as wholesalers. Refer to my previous post.

I have an inquiry in with Chase. Will let you know. EDIT: $25.00 fee at Chase. I think this is actually a reduction from what they used to charge, if memory serves

Presentation3.ppt

Perhaps I got it wrong, but I see this as being a contradictory comment. On one hand, you are legitimizing marketplace forces and the use of supply and demand as a method to determine pricing, on the other, you appear to be suggesting that dealers out of China cannot justify pricing on this baisis. Doesn't make sense to me, but again, maybe I got it wrong. In a free and open market, commodity Pricing is ALWAYS determined by marketplace forces, i.e. supply and demand. Dealers charge what they do because they can. They compete with other dealers. If their prices rise too much, you will take your business elsewhere. If dealers cannot compete with other dealers on the basis of price (adjusted for other factors such as service, willingness to customized, etc...) they either lower their price or go out of business. The other factors alluded to in your post (risk, expense, etc...) are profitability factors, but they are not relevant to the price of the product in the market. As far as pricing is concerned. All that matters is competition, service, and supply vs. demand dynamics As for the indigenous chinese watch dealer selling his product for 1/2 of what our dealers sell it for, he/she operates at a marked disadvantage vis-a-vis our dealers, in that he does not have access to the global market place. That lack of distribution capability restricts the marketplaces they can participate in, and by extenson, their potential clients. The consequence of more product and less market is higher supply and lower demand which equates to lower price. That is the nature of a wholesale business. By contrast our dealers have access to wider range of consumers. Less product, more market, lower supply, higher demand, higher prices. Finally an editorial comment. Considering the risks, costs, and value provided, I really do not consider a 100% price market to be all that unreasonable, at least not for the products we buy. As has been said before, this is not Walmart. Our dealers risk alot.. as consumers it is unlikely we will ever run afoul of the law for buying a replica watch... worst case, we lose the watch and/or our purchase price... but the dealers risk is far greater. If High risk did not = high reward, who would be in this business?

From the US an overseas transfer of funds including an FX to euros (results in IBAN receipt in europe and perhaps asia, not sure) can be kind of costly. Will vary from bank to bank, but depending on how the transfer is initiated, (on-line or manually at the bank window) fees can be very high. My advise would be to contact your bank to determine if you use your on-line banking platform to initiate the transfer and if so, how to go about getting set up for the service and what the charges are. They should be lower than initiating them though a retail branch winow. If that method is available, you will probably have to be set up to make it work, but the set up process is not too bad, and the payoff is in convenience, and in most cases lower fees. The transfers themselves are very secure. If you go through the teller window, the charges will likely be , perhaps as high a s USD 50.00 per transfer, plus a premium on the FX interchange (you will probably pay this in either case).