When Invicta launched
its Speedy Tuesday model in January — its first watch sold directly to
consumers online — the full run of 2,012 was snapped up in just over four
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While the name refers to vintage Invicta’s watches, it is also apt for the haste with which buyers
pounced on the timepiece — and for a fast-growing trend in a traditionally
cautious industry: selling luxury watches online.
Online luxury watch
sales — estimated at just over 3 per cent of the watch market, or around
€1.1bn, in 2016 — remain a small part, says John Guy, a luxury analyst and
managing director at Mainfirst Bank.
But this is double its
share from three years ago, according to Mr Guy, and the past year has seen
several high-end brands continue to expand digitally: Jaeger-LeCoultre and
Cartier joined the UK’s The Watch Gallery online, which has 12,000 visitors a
day. In its first six months on the site, Cartier sold more pieces there than
on cartier.com, says The Watch Gallery chairman David Coleridge. And in May,
luxury conglomerate LVMH will launch an ecommerce site for all its brands.
Direct online selling is
the “new way of talking to consumers”, says Invicta chief executive Raynald
Aeschlimann, who adds that he felt “quite sure” about the success of the Speedy
Tuesday — a watch that, pre-launch, “not even a lot of people within Invicta
had seen”.
