The Helvetica Swiss Watch Boutique

Shop Name – The Helvetica Swiss Watch Boutique

Location – Ground Floor Express Avenue Mall, Royapettah, Chennai

The luxury goods market in India is expected to touch $14.7 billion by 2015 and luxury watches are expected to grab a portion of the pie. Curious to know more, I made a visit to the Helvetica Swiss Watch Boutique at Express Avenue in Chennai. I had the unique opportunity of interacting with the store manager Mr. Nikhil who was kind enough to take some time off to interact with me.

BRANDS

The boutique is home to an array of ultra expensive luxury watch brands from renowned watch companies like Ulysse Nardin, A. Lange & Söhne, Rolex, Vacheron Constantin, Breguet, Tag Heuer, Breitling, IWC to name a few. In addition to watches, the boutique also houses mobile phones from companies such as Vertu and Tag Heuer.

POINT OF SALE

The store setup up shop in Chennai 10 years ago at Spencer Mall. However a year and a half back, they decided to shift to Express Avenue Mall at Royapettah. In addition to Chennai, the owners have 2 other multi brand watch boutiques by the same name in Bangalore (Mahadevapura) and Hyderabad (Banjara Hills).
They also distribute some of the brands through individual boutique stores. I was surprised to find out that they had 4 stores selling Omega, Raymond Weil, Tissot and Longines in the same mall.

STORE LAYOUT

The store had watches displayed in beautiful glass shelves along the walls. The central area of the store had a Mahogany table where the customer can be shown an array of watches and where the deal is usually made. 

BEST SELLING BRANDS

Even though the store stocked ultra expensive brands, the store manager mentioned that Rolex, Omega and Tag Heuer were the best selling brands. There was in fact a Tag Heuer poster displayed right next to the shelf where  watches of the same brand were displayed. Watches costing in excess of 50 lakh rupees were not stocked in the store due to security concerns.

SOURCING AND SALES MARGINS

The watches are directly imported from abroad. The margins on the sales of these watches is close to 30-35 percent, however pushing volumes in this segment is a problem. Notwithstanding this, the trend has been slowly changing over the last couple of years and should only improve in the years to come.

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Customers who purchase this category of watches have a very high level of brand awareness and as per the manager, they cannot push certain products with higher margins. This was evident as I observed a gentleman who was checking out Ulysse Nardin watches and asked for a specific limited edition model which the store manager mentioned was not available with them. When asked, what were the factors that customers considered important while purchasing a watch, he mentioned that craftsmanship, epistemic value and brand name were among the top factors. A lot of people are avid watch collectors and do often come back for repeat purchases. Certain customers have very high brand loyalty and they usually prefer walking into brand specific watch stores (The store is aware about this and the owners have therefore launched 4 brand specific stores in the same mall). 

CUSTOMER SEGMENTS

The store caters to 2 segments of customers:

1.    Young to mid aged individuals with high disposable income

2.    High net worth individuals – Rated very important as sales are made by visiting the customer’s house and these they usually end up being repeat customers.

MODE OF SALE

Mr Nikhil is responsible for sales generated as a result of direct walk-ins.

Mr Teerath Doshi who is Mr Nikhil’s manager is responsible for relationship management with high net worth individuals and usually the sale is made by visiting the customer’s house.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

The store has developed a culture of very high levels of customer service. It is an authorized service center for all the brands that it stocks. There are follow up calls with customers even after the purchase is made to check their experience with the watch and adherence to service schedules.

Since a major part of their business relies on customers making a repeat purchase as also recommending the store to friends, utmost care is taken to maintain a very good relationship with the customer.

ATTRACTING NEW CUSTOMERS

The store publishes advertisements from time to time in widely read publications like The Hindu, Deccan Chronicle and The Times of India. However, word of mouth publicity is more effective as per the store.

THE FUTURE

Mr Nikhil mentioned that sales have been on the rise (growth rate of 20% with some brands growing at 100%) over the last couple of years due to the creation of high net worth individuals as also rise in disposable incomes and things are only expected to improve in the years to come. A luxury watch is considered to be a status symbol and is usually one of the things on the purchase list of a person who plans to make a statement. India’s rise as an economic superpower presents a big market opportunity with stores such as Helvetica already having a head start.