It seems like every year, the Holidays seep more and more into the months prior leading up to them. This is Capitalism at its finest, as businesses know that the way they can win the dollars of the millions of consumers more than their competitors is by getting in front of their face MORE, and EARLIER than anyone else.
It may annoy you (I know it annoys me seeing Pumpkin Spiced lattes being marketed in September, and Christmas tunes being blasted in early November), but there’s a valid reason it’s happening.
The luxury watch market has similar opportunities. Knowing how the seasonal ebbs and flows of consumers look to buy/sell is key to being prepared to capitalize on the money to be made.
Many people don’t realize this, but NOW (September) is the time to be stocking up on inventory for the Holidays coming up. You may think that it’s too early to pay attention to that, but I will warn you, if you do, you’re already behind the curve.
The December holidays are where the money is pissed away like it doesn’t matter. Families that can barely afford to make ends-meet still save money year-round to please their children and loved ones with gifts.
So when people want to spoil their loved ones with luxury watches, that’s when you need to be ready.
These targeted consumers (your potential customers) are already keeping their eyes open for ideas as to what they’re going to get as gifts. Some will be wives, sisters, girlfriends, mothers buying for their significant others, sons, fathers, etc. Some will be gentlemen buying for other gentlemen. And some will be people who have never even seen a luxury watch trying to make a very important purchase for someone else they love.
This is a big deal to them, and it also provides you an opportunity to educate them as to what they should be looking for.
YOU can plant the seed in their mind like inception to lead them to buy pieces that you can provide for them at strong profits.
Some of these buyers will know exactly what they want, and that’s fine because it can save you time have to source when they’re still undecided. But many others will have vague ideas of what they actually want to get, so you can guide them down the path that makes it a win for them and also you.
So how does this all apply to your watch trading strategy and how you should be building your portfolio? If you’ve taken the Knight Watch Advanced course you know it’s critical to look at your watch trading strategy as a portfolio approach and not just one-for-one trades.
Now is the time you should be inventorying pieces that you KNOW are at bottom cash value prices and that have a strong resale demand. If you have taken WTA Part 2 you know how to calculate bottom
cash values on pieces from the charts and know when you actually have a deal worth sitting on.
If the watch isn’t near BCV, you can simply pass or broker it.
The point here is, NOW is the time to be buying these strong deals. People are wanting to cash out of their watches because they are getting ready to spend money come the Holidays. So this is your opportunity to take advantage of that.
The key here is, once you buy up a strong inventory to hold, you have to be disciplined and patient enough to execute your sales of these timepieces through the coming months. That means you WON’T let go of your watches at discounted prices if you don’t need to, and you become patient on selling them for the retail prices you know they can command from the RIGHT TYPE of buyer.
And this is also the time for you to be a yes man/woman. If you have customers or private sellers or other people looking to sell to you at dirt cheap prices and the watches are really good to hold and trade, you find a way to make the deal work. You can leverage credit, lines of credit, or investor money like taught in Luis’s Rolex Course. But you don’t turn down the strong buys now because you’ll lose out on money coming in the next HOT months when money is changing hands rapidly.
So remember, when consumers aren’t buying frequently in certain seasons/months it’s not a sign that you as a trader should slow down your purchasing. It’s a sign that the big spend time is coming, and you need to be prepared to take advantage of it if you want to capitalize.
Also remember that people are done spending on gifts and focusing on work by the first week of December. And Halloween, and Thanksgiving can be distracting. So if you don’t have your inventory stocked by latest early November, you’re going to be too late. For these next two months, this is when you build your nest egg. Similar to how the squirrel stores nuts for the hibernation months of winter. If you aren’t planting your seeds now, when it comes time to reap the crop yield, you’ll be shit out of luck.
I wish you all well this upcoming season and hope you make that big money!