Timex Is Making Watches in America Again • Hacker News Board

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#11

Post by searine » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

AmVess wrote: post #5

The question is why? It's a $20 movement in a poorly finished case. The most important part of the watch isn't made in the USA. It's a $50 product being sold for $500. Further, it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin with; excellent quality at a low price. This is neither. For $500, they are going up against some vastly superior products. For example, this cannot hold a candle to any similar…

>it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin with; excellent quality at a low price.

Brands change, particularly fashion brands. Many high-end brands become debased and low end brands slowly scale up in quality to become high-end a decade later. Timex doesn't need to make a lot of 500 dollar watches because they wont sell a lot of 500 dollar watches.

It might however move the perceived value of the brand outside of the discount bin, and earn some cheap goodwill advertising while it does so.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#12

Post by ousta » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 1:44 PM UTC

AmVess wrote: post #5

The question is why? It's a $20 movement in a poorly finished case. The most important part of the watch isn't made in the USA. It's a $50 product being sold for $500. Further, it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin with; excellent quality at a low price. This is neither. For $500, they are going up against some vastly superior products. For example, this cannot hold a candle to any similar…

no one can win on seiko at this price point and in terms of hardware. but that doesnt matter much. have a look at shinola. they sold 700$ watches "made in detroit" that are quartz movement and they made so much and it worked so well that they are now selling automatic movements. don't hate on the made in america it is a brand in itself.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#13

Post by AmVess » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 1:54 PM UTC

searine wrote: post #11

AmVess wrote: post #5

The question is why? It's a $20 movement in a poorly finished case. The most important part of the watch isn't made in the USA. It's a $50 product being sold for $500. Further, it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin with; excellent quality at a low price. This is neither. For $500, they are going up against some vastly superior products. For example, this cannot hold a candle to any similar…

>it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin with; excellent quality at a low price. Brands change, particularly fashion brands. Many high-end brands become debased and low end brands slowly scale up in quality to become high-end a decade later. Timex doesn't need to make a lot of 500 dollar watches because they wont sell a lot of 500 dollar watches. It might however move the perceived value of…

All good points, but they should have selected a non novelty grade movement to start out with. Landfills and warehouses are filled with this type of corporate vanity product that failed to deliver.

Beyond that, Timex is a brand name relegated to disposable $20 watches. Trying to fluff up their mind share with a poorly made and laughably priced product is not going to work out for them.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#14

Post by themodelplumber » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

AmVess wrote: post #5

The question is why? It's a $20 movement in a poorly finished case. The most important part of the watch isn't made in the USA. It's a $50 product being sold for $500. Further, it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin with; excellent quality at a low price. This is neither. For $500, they are going up against some vastly superior products. For example, this cannot hold a candle to any similar…

I'm a periodic Timex buyer, and I've been wondering for the last few years if they've noticed what I've noticed: "High end" Timex watches tend to sell. They have legs.

This is just based on watching both pricing and availability at watch retailers. So when earlier this year I saw an attractive new Timex design listed at a bit of a stretch price considering it's a Timex, I decided to buy it. I own other reliable and discontinued Timex watches that never reappeared on the market. Nothing _really_ high end though--and for that reason I think they noticed the room for additional profit.

It's getting a bit worn unfortunately, as a word, but IMO good "design" still moves customers and this moves products.

I'm glad I bought my new Timex (nothing super high-end, just around to $100 but not a design I had seen before) and I bought it from a watch retailer who up until recently refused to carry them. Something's changing.

Looking at the $500 price, a lot of watch collectors look for that thing that the other guy doesn't have, which also gives them brand nostalgia, etc. They know that when it's gone, it's usually gone. And $500 is nothing to a lot of these guys. They will spend $500 on a pocket knife that stays in their pocket all day.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#15

Post by criddell » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 2:14 PM UTC

AmVess wrote: post #13

searine wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin with; excellent quality at a low price. Brands change, particularly fashion brands. Many high-end brands become debased and low end brands slowly scale up in quality to become high-end a decade later. Timex doesn't need to make a lot of 500 dollar watches because they wont sell a lot of 500 dollar watches. It might however move the perceived value of…

All good points, but they should have selected a non novelty grade movement to start out with. Landfills and warehouses are filled with this type of corporate vanity product that failed to deliver. Beyond that, Timex is a brand name relegated to disposable $20 watches. Trying to fluff up their mind share with a poorly made and laughably priced product is not going to work out for them.

> novelty grade movement

It's from Ronda and it's a good movement.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#16

Post by anthonybsd » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 2:15 PM UTC

keeganjw wrote: post #8

4thaccount wrote: post #2

Interesting article on doing more manufacturing in America. The problem is that this is an extremely expensive and niche product. I want slightly more expensive products made in the USA and I'll pay a premium for it, but nothing astronomical. If I can pay 20% more on coffee and chocolate to make sure the farmers were paid a living wage, we can do similar things in the US. I understand that US wages are much higher an…

Watches are a weird market in that a $30 one from Walmart keeps better time than pretty much any watch from a luxury brand costing $5000 or more. $500 is way more than the average person will spend on a watch but once you get into the watch world a little bit you start to become numb to prices and all of a sudden $500 seems dirt cheap. I don't think this is targeted to a normal person, but the type of people who alre…

> I don't think this is targeted to a normal person, but the type of people who already own tens of thousands of dollars in watches and will buy this as a novelty with out even blinking. It's a weird and very rich (elitist) market.

Yeah, and this "weird and very rich" market pretty much exclusively steers clear of anything that says "Quartz" on it. Hell, even state of the art mechanical movement like Seiko Spring Drive suffered from being associated with Quartz watches, even despite the fact that it had nothing to do with them. So there goes that theory.

More likely this looks like some executive at Timex finding some Shinola garbage at some local mall and going "Do that, just replicate whatever these guys are doing!" without first asking themselves "Is this business model even viable or profitable?"

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#17

Post by coldtea » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 2:16 PM UTC

AmVess wrote: post #5

The question is why? It's a $20 movement in a poorly finished case. The most important part of the watch isn't made in the USA. It's a $50 product being sold for $500. Further, it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin with; excellent quality at a low price. This is neither. For $500, they are going up against some vastly superior products. For example, this cannot hold a candle to any similar…

>The question is why? It's a $20 movement in a poorly finished case. The most important part of the watch isn't made in the USA. It's a $50 product being sold for $500.

Most watches are like that. In the high end, it's $1000 product being sold for $30000.

>Further, it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin with; excellent quality at a low price.

They already do well in that market. It's not enough for them, they want a market with better margins.

It's not like they're the only: Casio G-shocks are now having a "high end" brand, selling $100-$200 worth of watches for 1 to several K dollars. There's a basic square (the classic 6510 and co mechanism that sells for 30-50$) that goes for $800 just because it's now in stainless steel.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#18

Post by anthonybsd » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 2:17 PM UTC

AmVess wrote: post #5

The question is why? It's a $20 movement in a poorly finished case. The most important part of the watch isn't made in the USA. It's a $50 product being sold for $500. Further, it completely misses the point of what made Timex famous to begin with; excellent quality at a low price. This is neither. For $500, they are going up against some vastly superior products. For example, this cannot hold a candle to any similar…

Shinola is stuffing $100 movements into cases that are frankly completely oversized for them and selling them for $1000+. I guess Timex wants in on the action. Don't underestimate the power of marketing hype.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#19

Post by galangalalgol » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 2:20 PM UTC

keeganjw wrote: post #8

4thaccount wrote: post #2

Interesting article on doing more manufacturing in America. The problem is that this is an extremely expensive and niche product. I want slightly more expensive products made in the USA and I'll pay a premium for it, but nothing astronomical. If I can pay 20% more on coffee and chocolate to make sure the farmers were paid a living wage, we can do similar things in the US. I understand that US wages are much higher an…

Watches are a weird market in that a $30 one from Walmart keeps better time than pretty much any watch from a luxury brand costing $5000 or more. $500 is way more than the average person will spend on a watch but once you get into the watch world a little bit you start to become numb to prices and all of a sudden $500 seems dirt cheap. I don't think this is targeted to a normal person, but the type of people who alre…

A thermally compensated crystal is one or two orders of magnitude more accurate than a ten dollar Casio or Timex. Less than one second per year.

That said, mostly you are right, a 5 million dollar patek will sell a few copies to someone...

It's good to be king I guess.

Re: Timex Is Making Watches in America Again

#20

Post by ImprovedSilence » Tue, Apr 30, 2019, 2:22 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #4

That’s a nice looking watch. If it had an automatic movement I may seriously consider getting one.

Agree completely. However I’m pretty sure theres a cartel (ETA?) for automatic Swiss movements that Timex doesn’t want to cater to. Which basically leaves this watch in the “overpriced fashion” category. And they probably don’t want an Asian movement cuz that appears cheap (although there’s some good ones out there).

I think it’d be awesome to see a USA made movement again in this price point, but I’m not holding my breath.