E-mail from Reader : Hunt for Rolex with Discount

This was a follow-up e-mail from reader Steve over the earlier posting. From my personal experiences, I found that one could generally get better offers from Rolex ADs in Hong Kong, Macau, UAE and Europe. If you go to an AD with higher and faster turnover, it could meant that they have the sales volume and could therefore offer you that extra price-down to close the deal fast. It helps if you have purchased from them before, or are buying a few pieces together. Not the norm, but I have done that before- 3 Rolexes over 2 days at the same shop, helping my Boss and colleague to net some good deals. Needless to say, I struck quite an impression with the manager and during the next purchase, I received preferential treatment and price-down offers.

If you were not a seasoned traveller or have no friends whom could assist you to net these pieces overseas, you could still purchase from grey resellers. Point to note was that some of these grey resellers deal with pre-owned pieces so make sure that you were paying for the right type of goods. You don't want to pay a less-than-AD-price-but-more-than-pre-owned-price, for a pre-owned piece marketed as a new piece. Another point was that some grey resellers only offer their shop warranty and not the Rolex manufacturer warranty- for me, I would advise to get the Rolex manufacturer warranty wherever possible as you could just walk into Rolex SC at Meara Dion in case of any issues, and needn't be worried about Franken parts. And some grey resellers sell non-full boxed sets so be sure to bargain down the price if that was the case.

Let us see what was the Rolex RRP from the previous blog post :

I would share with readers on some of the prices from grey resellers here in Malaysia, and you could see that there was an element of discount presented in their sale. In the example below, you could see that the Sea Dweller 116600, which was my current fave-most Rolex diver watch, retailed at RM40,350 at Rolex Authorised Dealer, but discounted 10% downwards to RM36,200 at a grey reseller shop.

As per above, there were elements of discount but be sure to learn more about the warranty provided. And if the piece that you wanted to buy was priced way too low, you should think rationally if it was at all possible as Rolex watches tend to sell well even in its MSRP. Learn to be smart to avoid being taken for a ride as there could be pretty good replica pieces out there in the market. All the best in hunting for your fave Rolex piece!