Rolex Certified Pre-Owned Watches | My thoughts 

Rolex used prices drop 20% since the summer, Rolex announce their pre-owned scheme where they charge even more than the grey dealers do. This allows the grey to raise their prices too and the used prices remain high. I don’t think the timing of the announcement is a coincidence!

Hi Andy, the only issue with your straight trade example is that the dealer has not made any profit, they’ve only traded inventory, ie, a new GMT for a pre-owned sub. The profit they would have made selling the GMT is now postponed and dependent on their selling the sub. I would suggest the more likely scenario is that they offer you a lesser amount for the sub that requires you to pay the dealer an amount equal to their GMT profit. Now the dealer’s made its profit and still has a watch to sell, ie, your old sub.

I was looking at the prices for pre owned Rolex at Bucherer. For example a Deep Sea 116660, does not say what year it is but I assume around 2010-12. I got one of those and paid around £9000 for it 2 years ago, full set with everything, immaculate condition including 1 year warranty. For this same watch Bucherer want £16.100, fair enough 2 years warranty but I imagine very very few of these will have issues so nothing to worry about, I would not pay much for such a warranty if I could choose. I think you will now get one of these for around £11.000 at a normal grey market dealer, typically 1 year warranty. So who would pay £5000 extra?? Can't really imagine that many will.

BUCHERER is opposite Harrods and also in Selfridges in London, probably more outlets.

Correct me if I’m wrong, Rolex only gets a cut of this by offering their certification for a watch only. It’s the AD that’s making a massive profit by legitimizing the aftermarket pricing giving the impression Rolex is controlling the price. It’s no longer a grey market, it’s white again. It’s not a bad model, but the pricing is based off 6 month old grey pricing which the market has shifted and they’ll realize very few consumers are buying at that price. Who bought at that price? Grey market, feeding the hype train.

15700 is twice the price I would pay. 7500 sounds realistic for a modern Sub second hand in terms of fair value.

Totally agree with you - Afficionados are not the target audience of CPO. It's for the regular joes that just want a watch and some convenience. good vid 🙂

What’s to stop AD’s stockpiling the sought after models for 3 years and then retailing them at 2/3 list price? Bit of a no brainer for the big AD’s

I like your perspective about trading in for a new one! Very interesting! I was also thinking there is an opportunity for an AD to sell a watch to one of their “best” customers, get the customer to sell it back to them after a period of time, sell it on as a used watch to an unsuspecting “punter” with a lot of cash. Rinse and repeat. It’s a total win win and opportunity for a good old scam…maybe.

Love this company they attract so much drama by saying absolutely nothing . Conspiracy theories are astonishing and become more bizarre by the day .. Anyone would think they consist of a few bond criminals planning world domination . I lived in Switzerland for 5 years heard very little about them and what I did hear from a few who were privy to info was they act impeccably.. There’s no place quite like rules regulations and external auditing quite like Switzerland so rumours they act as they please is an absolute nonsense… In the watch world they are massive but in the realms of general corporate muscle they are relatively small , don’t think they even rank in the top 50 companies in Switzerland .. whatever happens you can bet they will act with conservative caution despite the nonsense spoken by the conspiracy theorists.. you always act with rational and reasoning so it’s always nice to hear your views ..

I was wondering when you were going to do the follow up on your JLC UTM? Thanks for your informative videos!😊

Even easier for AD to swap green tag for white pre-owned tag and charge more!

Rolex may have a lot of followers but their business model and customer service is shocking. Playing on the desperation of public. They won't sell you a new watch at retail but will gladly sell you a used one (pre owned lol) for much much more than the new one.

Thank you for the update. How do you think the vintage or older watches will be evaluated by AD? For example, Day-date ref 118206 in platinum. Without box and papers this watch listed for $30,000 - $35,000 With box and papers fulls set up to $55,000 Since Rolex not interested in full sets older watches, who in the world going to sell them to AD? Everybody talking about newer models. I would like to hear your opinion on vintage or 20+ years watches. Full sets vs naked, etc. Thank you!

Hi Andy, good of you to address Rolex's AD's latest offerings. Rolex AD's pre-owned offerings seemed to target buyers with those seeking assured conveniences in the brand with assurance confidence. Their differentiated unique offering benefits from gray dealers are attractive for purchase considerations, despite and inspite of possible disadvantages. Best regards Andy 🤓⌚👍

It’s Rolex trying to dictate the price of the gray used markets, I do see how a dealer could say a display model is used and sell it CPO at a markup based on the gray market price. This would be the case is the dealer was making a percentage on sales and not a fixed amount per unit sold

Rolex are just a bubble, selling a 2k watch for 9k and then sell it 2nd hand for 16k? Market fundamentals will always come back, what value is in a mass produced ss watch? Buy it if you like it but never as an investment

Will Rolex offer the same or more than the grey dealers for buy backs , and what price will Rolex re-sell them at? sure the new tag may help a little but if Rolex offers significantly less favourable prices for buying and selling it probably won't work out very well.

Some frankly ridiculous secondary prices coming through this scheme so you pay through the nose twice to get your cast iron guarantee. Just picked up a new Rolex form the AD and you really can’t beat the purchasing experience. But I think I’m done for a good while now as the whole game has become crazy.

Great thoughts here and actually really makes sense! I'll just keep waiting for that call for the humble 36mm OP....I don't need to play the 3 year flip game if that's what they're hoping for. One decent piece for life, and then I can relax and enjoy omega and many other available watches

the PO pieces have to be three years or older, isn't that the rule ? It is a new wrinkle in this watch game. not sure if it hurts the grey market guys -. your scenario of trading UP , could be what they want. be safe. ~ JDS/CT

I think your example ‘trade-up’ use-case is about right. Though I highly doubt no money would exchange. Likely they buy back your sub for the price you paid or less, and in return they offer you a new GMT which you buy at rrp. Ultimately, for every other customer use-case I can think of the CPO is bad news. Rolex’s customer is their AD network though, and for them it allows them to profit twice essentially; giving them a slice if the pre-owned flipper market. Note CPO is models over 3 years, so said pre-owned dealers/flippers will still profit as they’ll be trading ‘new’ pieces essentially. If anything, the high CPO prices will justify their high prices too, and may even increase them. Again, bad news for genuine Rolex wearers/collectors who have more sense than money.

The big question here is will Bucherer get used Daytona models from the grey dealers (i.e., third, fourth, fifth… hand watches). Second hand means only one owner watches. Your typical grey market watch has gone through multiple owners, and may have crossed borders. Any one of those owners could have messed with it.

So Rolex second hands gonna be more than MSRP or the same?

good vid Andy but christ! what's with the add's?

Interesting thoughts, thanks!

If the pre owned from Rolex AD does not come with box I think they will struggle. A lot.

Great content and insight!

Guess Rolex wants to try controlling that market too. They seem to like extreme control, like when they sued that small company in California that was selling Rolex watches with custom dials.

Hi Andy which platform do you prefer to sell a watch on? Thanks 👍

Andy, nice discussion.

IMHO the soap opera now for this brand has become more interesting then the product.

I think the 3 year car leasing model is what’s happening here - it’s worked for the car dealers and why not for Rolex - there are a lot of watch lovers out there but also even more people that want to be seen with a Rolex and what better then to be seen with different models on the wrist every 3 years or so!

more marketing from the Swiss marketing company

Rolex sees used pricing dropping and they are doing this to rescue used market pricing? Either way I'm predicting a huge recession, and the majority of Rolex will be lower than MSRP. The suppy will eventually catch up with demand, and this looks like a bubble waiting to pop.

So it’s like getting a car on finance, just keep trading it back in after 3 years for a new one

Initially not for watches older than 30 years... recently changed to no age limit 🤔 ?

Love the content , hate the background music . Hearing impaired folks like me struggle with background overlays.

It’s very naive to think an AD isn’t going to milk the consumer trading in a watch and just trade an old watch for a new one with minimal cash. They’ll pay low dollar on incoming watches and jack up the price to well above market price. The popular models (steel Daytona) will still be sold to “preferred clients” and the trade ins will be less popular models from desperate consumers that think they’re earning brownie points for the popular model they can’t get. Rolex ADs are predatory, they’ve shown themselves as such many times before.

Easy to be fooled by a fake watches but rarely a fake car. 95% are casuals buyers will want authentic watch from an AD. Every other shop to them is a pawn shop (regardless of box and papers). They'll buy one watch a decade, so dont mind paying the ADs 10-20% premium.

Stand above in how they do business?? Really? Seems like a simple cash grab/market share grab to me. Charging more than the grey market... all they're doing is validating the grey market. It's an attempt to be seen as being along side the likes of VC and PP. I give them 5 years at best, then they'll be readily available and nobody will want them.

Is not Starbucks, is hulk 116610LV

Great content and insight!