I think it's a good idea to remove the perk, but it would have been better to pre-announce that the Christmas offer would be the last.

It's better that CW aren't seen as a perpetual discounter, when the prices are already competitive.

Maybe the sales will also become a rarer thing as well.

rc51owner wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 4:16 pm
P.P.S. It would have been nice to know that the previous voucher was the last one so that fence sitters like me might have taken advantage of it before they were phased out.

Why? We have all had the same opportunity to use the voucher, and the same amount of warning. If you want to make good cider harvest your apples before winter.

It is good that CW told Kip - they were under no obligation to do so.

I imagine they thought that it made sense to communicate it at this stage, as more folk would have inevitably become aware, before the date that the next voucher would ordinarily have been issued.

I was told last week, in the context of an email exchange about visiting to pick up my Bel Canto. I took the view that it wasn’t my place to set hares running.

I have always viewed the occasional discount promotion and sales as completely distinct and different to the regular issue of £100 vouchers.

I reckon that anyone who really viewed the £100 as a true discount doesn’t really understand marketing.

Neil

If the discount was “built in” it means a lack of discount makes the watch that much more expensive and unjustifiably so.

So in effect, it’s the second price increase in less than a year.

I’ve never understood people getting grumpy about a perpetual discount voucher. Literally the only people who ought to be concerned about whether a voucher cheapens the brand are the employees at CW. The rest of you are fans and customers, not shareholders.

Of course, I don’t really understand why people get grumpy about many things in the watch world. Case in point: hundreds of posts complaining about the logo.

Fair enough. Having had my first experience of a CW sale, July, I think their sales matter a lot more to me. I do hope they keep a welcome discount for their first time customers.

nbg wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 5:30 pm It is good that CW told Kip - they were under no obligation to do so.

I imagine they thought that it made sense to communicate it at this stage, as more folk would have inevitably become aware, before the date that the next voucher would ordinarily have been issued.

I was told last week, in the context of an email exchange about visiting to pick up my Bel Canto. I took the view that it wasn’t my place to set hares running.

I have always viewed the occasional discount promotion and sales as completely distinct and different to the regular issue of £100 vouchers.

I reckon that anyone who really viewed the £100 as a true discount doesn’t really understand marketing.

Neil

Yes, but the absence of a previously regularly discount represents an immediate increase of up to 20%. I got at least a couple of emails from CW around Christmas to remind me to make use of the current discount voucher.

I can certainly see that the repeated discounts can make CW look like the furniture and carpet sellers who always have a sales promotion. Nevertheless if these offers are not to be repeated there ought to have been some advance notice, I feel. Otherwise, an erstwhile £700 watch immediately becomes an £800 watch, and rather less attractive.

^^ exactly. The lack of advance notice is poor form at the very least. Those who were waiting for the next voucher may have bought last month if they knew the vouchers would be going away. A total lack of warning is not cool.

Having read a lot of the comments on Facebook about this it seems once again that whatever CW seems to do upset someone.

It’s been a regular complaint for a long time that never ending sales and discounts give the impression of the brand being likened to the DFS of watches. Now they've stopped and people aren’t happy.

I’ve also read about the price increases from the likes of Omega, Tudor and Rolex on 1st January, so just look on this like CW following suit and the removal of the discount code is just their price increase instead.

the impression of the brand being likened to the DFS of watches

You're not wrong, but that always makes me smile. It's seen as a negative. If CW had employed as many people as DFS and had their level of profit then I would expect that the owners would be very happy indeed. And the thread about seeing a stranger wearing a CW would be rather longer ...

I'll leave it to others to decide if they think that's good or bad!

MichaelMD wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 4:53 pm With their recent very reasonable pricing on the Trident 300 release I tend to agree with them that gimmicky discount codes aren't really needed anymore. Typically when a company offers discounts they simply build the discounted dollars into the price anyway.

Sent from my Galaxy S20 using Tapatalk

exHowfener wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 5:22 pm And my opinion? (for what it's worth ) I think it's a good move. I like a bargain as much as anyone else, but as pointed out above - an automatic discount is surely built into the price so it's not a real discount. Given the early commitment from CW on transparent pricing, this move reinforces that.

NationOfLaws wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 5:40 pm I’ve never understood people getting grumpy about a perpetual discount voucher. Literally the only people who ought to be concerned about whether a voucher cheapens the brand are the employees at CW. The rest of you are fans and customers, not shareholders.

My brain can't get around the "discount is built into the price so it's not a real discount" comments. Is this suggesting that CW calculated what the RRP of every watch should be but consciously added £100 then provided the vouchers for "people in the know" to not have to pay the extra £100? So they were consciously fleecing an extra £100 profit off anybody that wasn't aware of the vouchers?

Like NationOfLaws I never understood why some people said CW should do away with £100 discounts.
Being on the Forum obviously I was aware of the vouchers so with a Showroom visit booked for 4th January this will be a REAL £100 increase on any potential purchase. As on another post, this will affect my purchasing decision as, for the watches I'm considering, this is 10% or more increase in what I was expecting to pay.

I agree that the present pricing of the Trident 300 is reasonable and indeed IMO it's good value for such a watch but there is no guarantee that this "reasonable-ness" will continue for other new releases. I wouldn't be surprised that further increases will happen relatively soon due to the existing global increased costs in resources and provision of energy.

I wonder why CW chose not to announce this in advance?. They made it clear maybe 1 year in advance that they would not participate in Black Friday this year so why not an early announcement of the removal of the voucher/discount codes?

Ultimately all of us on this forum and the general public have the ultimate decision whether to buy or not at the non-discounted price but this certainly brings CW closer to the price bands of other similar brands like Farer so maybe it's not such a bad thing for us customers to see these in a new financial light.

I don’t think the provision of vouchers in the past ever came with a guarantee that there would always be provision of vouchers going forward? In fact, we’re getting better notice than anyone else in the whole world that there won’t be any vouchers next year or ever more. Then again I don’t manage to plan anything in life so whether or not there’s a voucher with the summer copy of Loupe when I was going to buy a certain this or that watch is moot.

I thought the vouchers were a pretty good thing. Does that mean I should be personally grumbly about CW for taking them away? I don’t think it really works that way.

I agree with everything that has been said. It’s not about me.

I seem to remember having listened to various Mike France interviews that the removal of the discount voucher has been on the cards for the last year or so. These interviews indicated various new releases in Quarter 1 & 3 of 2023.

Do I think that CW offer a good package? - Yes.

The Trident 300 is £695 for a Swiss mechanical watch with 5 year warranty. I personally cannot think of much that beats it.

I perceived the discount vouchers simply as targeted marketing to encourage multiple purchases by buyers with a profile who may acquire watches more frequently than individual purchasers.

Its expensive to acquire a new customer (TV advertising, publications, Internet campaigns), the cost of this has to be built into the RSP.
Once a customer has made a purchase, they have bought into the CW brand and value proposition. At this point the objective is to encourage more purchases/spend.. the discount voucher played to this audience I.e. I already liked the brand, the product, the value proposition and with this voucher it becomes 'even' more attractive for me to make a further purchase.
As a supplier I may accept lower margins for this greater 'share of the customers wallet'. Also, the supplier overhead doesn't need to factor in the cost per order for new customers (expensive advertising etc) so they may have a little more leeway on margin/prices.

I have no opinion if its the right or wrong thing for CW to do, its simply a business decision based on buying and marketing data .

Amor Vincit Omnia wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 5:27 pm

rc51owner wrote: ↑Mon Jan 02, 2023 4:16 pm
P.P.S. It would have been nice to know that the previous voucher was the last one so that fence sitters like me might have taken advantage of it before they were phased out.

Why? We have all had the same opportunity to use the voucher, and the same amount of warning. If you want to make good cider harvest your apples before winter.

Why? Because apparently some people got advance notice - i.e. see the post below your response to mine - and others weren't so privileged like the gentlemen booked in to visit the showroom on Jan 4th. Why are there separate "rules" for some people and not others? What a sh*ty way to run a business!

If I had know that the pre-Christmas voucher was the last, I would have taken advantage of it - now I am staring at an approximately 10% price increase for a purchase.

Cheers,

M