Most people are familiar with various off- and online places where they can buy affordable watches. In the last few years, crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have also become sales channels, but there is another one not everybody is familiar with: Massdrop
The concept is quite simple: you basically buy products together, and the more people buy, the lower the price will be. Massdrop does this through « communities » although you don’t really have to be a very active participant to be a member. One of these communities focusses on watches, but also offers accessories that go well with watches like collectors boxes and winders. They sometimes have polls on what watches they should offer next, but the most important part is that you can get new watches at a discount, the majority of their time with full manufacture warranty.
Most watches are quite affordable, to begin with, but sometimes also more exclusive watches are offered. Right now you can get for example an Armand Nicolet J09 for US$1.349,99, but also an Orient Mako XL for US$139,99. When you see a watch that interests you is works pretty much the same as Kickstarter. You agree to purchase a certain watch and pay when the « drop » deadline is reached. The only thing with Massdrop is that when more people buy the watch as well, the price can go down. Each product has a few tiers that you can see when you view the product, including how many people must have bought the product for the lower price to take effect. Even when you were the first, your price will lower as well. The result is that prices can get pretty competitive. Some drops offer different versions of a watch to choose from, but most of them come in one flavor, but when that just happens to be the one you like…