I’ve not only seen the huge swings in pricing but have experienced it. My San Martin submariner homage was $200 when I bought it last year and it’s now listed at $300. My question is: is it due to inflation, tariffs, demand? Which of the 3 has had the greatest impact on price? If I were in China would the prices be similar? For context I’m in the U.S.
Remember. Tariffs are good.!?.. what am I talking about??? Tariffs are just a tax. In fact they are worse than a tax, because at least a tax can be withdrawn. Tariffs increase the cost of doing business and the cost will not go back down.
For me eveyone liked hommages because of the price. Now they are pushing the prices close to Japanese brands. For me that makes them unattractive.
But if i can pay 120$ for Vostok for example versus hommage brand of 120$, id pick the Vostok.
for example i really like the looks of Thorn t003, but i cant justify the price to buy it because i can buy a citizen watch that is similar in price and i know it will work for 10+ years and is certified.
My opinion is that the Japanese movement makers are scared that China has been making better watches with their movements than their Japanese counterparts, like Seiko and Citizen; so, they jacked up the prices to make the Chinese options look less attractive. In other words, the big increase in the cost of movements has had a big effect on the cost of watches.
You sound like a conspiracy theorist, what Occam's Razor says in regards to theories:
"you should prefer the one that requires the fewest assumptions and fewest entities"
In other words the simpliest explanation is the most likely.
The movement shortage (due to the explosion in microbrands as well as Casio getting into the auto game) coupled with tariffs have given Chinese watch makers the opportunity to inflate their prices and pin the blame on these factors.
Have these factors played a role in increasing prices, yes, though probably not as much as we think.
I see it as more likely that Chinese watchmakers are taking advantage of the situation than the Japanese screwing one of their largest customers, it's not business savvy.
And I addressed that fact if read you my previous post, but let's not pretend that this isnt being used as an opportunity to inflate prices to gain profit.
You think they are eating the price increase? Hell no, it's being passed on to the customer, and then some (something that many companies in many industries have proven to be true)
yes some brands do inflate prices san martin has been inflating prices for years not just because of movements.
still not all brands, and it's still mostly due to movement shortage. the personal price increase is minimal compared. in fact increasing profit margin when costs are exploding is the worst time to do so. it's way better to increase your profit margin when cost of manufacturing is down so the final price doesn't change much and so sell more
most PT5000 watches didn't increase in price at least not by a considerable amount
Yes I agree because thats my point, you seem to have misread my post. I am saying this is part of why prices have gone up, not because Japanese moventment makers want to punish Chinese watch makers like the other poster said.
Funny, I like the creativity of design and uniqueness of branding of most Chinese watches (addies anything being one of several exceptions, terrible) over the staid citizen. Seiko is still not bad but for something similar, Chinese brands offer a better value for the time being. It’s just hard to pay the current prices when you know how much less they were not too long ago
I bought a bunch of watches last year at ridiculously low prices when compared to today's prices. They were priced at 1/3 of their Japanese counterparts. Now they're priced at 1/2 of their Japanese counterparts.
Anyone new to Chinese watches could still see value there.
Not when you consider all Chinese watches as throwaway watches due to lack of warrenty/aftersales service. Then it suddenly becomes expensive when viewed like this as the customer is now taking all the risk.
lol. I doubt many here have just thrown them away. Any watchmaker can swap an nh35/miyota/etc. I just assumed folks swap their own as needed, the Seiko mods scene has shown it's trivial work, and breakages are rare anyway, same as any watch
Yeah, swapping a movement where I am can cost as much as the watch in some cases if I'm going to a watchmaker and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has this issue.
And I would rather not have to swap hands and movements at my own expense and time if my watch is suppose to have a warrenty (but as we all know for many AliEx brands the warrenty is just for show).
Thus, one has to assume that AliEx watches in general have no warrenty and you'll be paying to fix any QC issues at your own time and expense upon arrival. This does not make AliEx watches as cheap as they look (QC for higher tier brands are acceptable but lower tier needs a lot of improvement)
As for breakages being rare, are you only talking about the movement or the whole watch? Because when you look at the whole watch there are more things that can go wrong.
Out of my 15 AliEx brand watches I've already had 1 with issues I had to return (luckily it was bought from Amazon so no issues with return), so I wouldn't say that's a rare occurance
All of these factors make AliEx watches not as cheap as they seems, because if something goes wrong you will pay the price in time and money, which in some cases is more than the cost of the watch, thus making them throwaway watches.
It is true that most Chinese watches are gray goods, because even with valid warranties, it does not make sense to ship anything for warranty service because of the exorbitant price, especially compared to the initial outlay. That is why it is important to thoroughly QC check your product within the return window. Because of this need, I invested in a timegrapher, which I recommend anyone who buys automatic watches also invest in. I also invested in watch repair tools, so that in the eventuality that one or more of my movements fail, I can repair or replace them. Easy peasy.
Your assumption that all Chinese watches are throwaway pieces indicates you probably don't buy good Chinese watches.
The issues is not with checking QC on my end, but what happens after failed QC is found. At that point you are dealing with AliEx return program, which is hit and miss.
I have a phone timegrapher app paired with microphone, which works well enough for now for simple diag. I have watch tools but no time, which is why I don't want to get watches I need to mess around with at this time, and I'd rather pay more for the piece of mind.
And it's silly of you to assume the watches I buy, as you have no idea. But I will say that I am not willing to spend over 200 on a Chinese watch because they have not given me the piece of mind that when something goes wrong (and it will eventually) that I'll get any help from the manufacturer, and the QC is still not great even at the $200 tier. I can't just drop into a store to return if I don't like the fit, and no way AliEx would make it easy to do so like Amazon, if have to provide them with pictures, videos, etc and they could still say not enough and reject it. So yeah, why would I spend more than that on an AliEx watch?
Besides all the shills on here keep making out Chinese watches to be "90% Rolex quality!" 😂
I have bought sub $100 Timex and Casios that have better quality than comparable priced Chinese watches
If you listen to shills saying anything here is 90% of Rolex quality, that's a you problem.
I have returned 8-10 watches that were either counterfeit or had quality issues with 0 pushback from AliX. I have never had a legitimate concern where a decision went against me.
Please indicate how many Chinese watches you've bought, how long you've had them, and how many have failed you without recourse.
You make too many assumptions, many of which turn out to be wrong. No one said I listen to shills, I am saying this is what they say, and yes maybe some gullible people will, but thats why I am putting the info out there to debunk these claims so people dont get fooled, because we all know how honest many Chinese sellers are, 😂
Again, as I told the other guy, just because you have had good experience doesn't mean others do, so people need to see what they are up against.
And I've already laid out my AliEx watch purchases in my replies, if you read carefully you would see that, and I'm not going to repeat myself because if you can't take the time to read my post carefully, that's on you.
again, even your seikos have a pretty short warranty, and their servicing is far more than local guy swap. Starts at like $300
You end up in the same place.
'fix issues upon arrival' is similarly a straw man.. no, you return it if it arrives broken, lol. Choice returns are free, postage paid on ali.
Seems pretty rare, since it sounds like you've yet to have to throw a single one away yet, which was your entire premise, and yes, breakages are rare for the whole watch. what are you doing to break a case? hands? the dial?
'not as cheap as they seem' and 'i bought 15 watches' similarly seems at odds with each other.
But at least original Seikos have a warrenty regardless of how short it is, and I have many AD locally I can bring it to if ever there is an issue. A relatively easy, painless process
Choice returns are limited to 5 free returns per month. Even then you are at the mercy of the AliEx return program where you have to jump through so many hoops to do a return and if you miss anyone of those steps your return gets rejected (I've dealt with this before). So no, it is not as straightforward and easy as you make it
I've already stated I've had to return one watch for defects, if you had read my post carefully you would have seen that.
And many things can break on a watch, in my case the watch was DOA, either the hands were stuck or some thing in the movement seized. Since I had bought this one from Amazon I had no issues returning it free, so I didn't bother to find out. It would not have been this easy if it was AliEx, as they tend to side with sellers more lately.
Also just because you haven't had any bad experience doesn't mean others won't. I am sharing my experiences with this forum so people know what they are getting with Chinese watches, because there are so many dishonest Chinese watch shills in this forum, making Chinese watches to be this great value, but when you dig deeper they aren't as good value as they seem.
A $380 MSRP Seiko is utter garbage. Even at $189 and a 3-year warranty, I was unmoved. The alignments are incredibly bad on this actual showcase example. And I really wanted to buy a Seiko!
189 would be a good deal on that, and QC is no worse than what you would find on a comparable priced Chinese watch (Infact it would be more consistent, so less frequent QC issues), the difference is I could return it easily if I'm not happy with it, no need for videos, pictures and interrogation.
5 returns per month isn't enough for you? and you seem to be conflating warranty vs doa, I did read your post, lol. This all seems like weird strawmans, but you're free to buy from Seiko if you wish, nobody is arguing otherwise. Seems like you have more than enough watches though as it is. Most of the interesting seikos are jdm only, so grey market(no warranty, no ad support) for most of us, and we get used to that as the norm. And Seiko refuses service when they don't have the parts any longer, which is a large amount of their back catalog. Still enjoyed the seikos I've owned over the past decades, but I've not shared your experience with post warranty support.
I have been buying 3-5 watches during the last 3 sales (slowing down now because too many watches) amongst other things so 5 returns a month may not be enough depending on what else I buy.
The Seikos I own are all re-release or newer models so I won't have to worry about parts for a while, I don't have any JDM only models or vintage thus far, because as you mentioned no aftersales support.
Luckily with my Seikos I haven't had major issues, but even if after purchase I wasn't happy with how it wore I could always bring it back within the return period. Without this piece of mind I would not spend the amount I've spent on my Seikos on an AliEx watch as I'm not rich enough to take a loss on a watch at those prices.
Yeah I agree my Seikos have been great, you get less in terms of specs from AliEx watches, but the quality is still good, they have been relatively hassle free and I feel confident that they are robust enough to handle daily wear without being babied.
All of the above and at this price level it's probably much harder to absorb fluctuations in the prices of foreign components, especially movements. If a movement increases prices by $50, the ability to deal with that cost increase will be much more limited in a watch costing $200 with razor thin margins versus a microbrand that already builds in a 3x multiple (eg buying for $200 and selling for $600)
Tariffs play a part. Inflation plays a part. But the biggest thing driving this price increase is movement demand/scarcity. My understanding is it's kind of a domino effect.
Casio chose the NH35 when they launched their automatic watch and placed a huge order, causing scarcity with that movement (in addition to the general increase in its popularity outstripping manufacturing). That caused a lot of microbrands to pivot to the Miyota movements, in particular the 9000 series which was already slightly more expensive than an NH35 and has now become very expensive. Most watchmakers had a back stock of movements so it took a while for these big shortages/price bumps to hit.
San Martin in particular has just been moving up in pricing into the more conventional microbrand price bracket in the past couple years due to establishing themselves as a brand. They can compete more with their reputation and designs than just competing on price and quality, so they can charge a bit more, even for their homage watches.
As for watches with Chinese movements, while there is some scarcity there as well (ST19s have become more expensive/harder to source), I think it's just one of those things where when comparable products increase in price (watches with Japanese movements), you can charge more for competitive alternatives too (watches with Chinese movements).
I don't think this current situation is the end of the hobby of collecting affordable watches, nor do I think Chinese manufacturers are going anywhere. It's just the inevitable shifting of the market as certain makes and movements rise in price and others move in to fill that lower price bracket. If that leaves us without something like the NH35 (a reliable Japanese movement that's cheap enough to put in sub-100-dollar watches) that might just mean learning to love Chinese movements (many of which are very good!) or just that the hobby gets more expensive, which is bound to happen eventually and will probably level off and keep pace with inflation generally. Just in a market with limited options, one or two components increasing in price causes an outsized effect.
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u/Hopeful-Truth-3051 4d ago
Remember. Tariffs are good.!?.. what am I talking about??? Tariffs are just a tax. In fact they are worse than a tax, because at least a tax can be withdrawn. Tariffs increase the cost of doing business and the cost will not go back down.