Sunday, July 25, 2010

Customers!

The other day, I paid a visit to a watch shop for picking up few watches I had ordered for. This place was bustling with customers and I started browsing the watches on display while waiting to be attended to. They had all the fashion brands on display as usual and of course Titan and Timex. Bio and I always dream of owning a nice watch shop one day where we could service,repair and sell good brands and meet other watch enthusiast. However, the customers here were nothing like that at all.
There was one guy who had a badly worn out strap with one of the keepers missing (which he substituted with a rubber band). I think he had a Fossil watch on and wanted to get the strap replaced. The guy behind the counter told him that it would cost him around Rs.1800 (~$40) to get a new original one, which seemed to be too much for him. He instead chooses to keep the strap as it is with the rubber band as a keeper and walks out. Now, I'm thinking, why couldn't he just replace it with another cheaper strap. You get pretty decent ones for Rs.250-350 ($6-8) and besides, its an old Fossil, its not like he plans to sell it in the future and is worried that the absence of the original strap will drastically lower the sale price.

Then there was this guy, who again had a Fossil with the crown missing. The guy behind the counter tells him that the price to replace it would be around Rs.850 ($18). Again, this is too much for the guy to justify and he asks for a cheaper alternative. "Well, if you want, I can just stick something on it to cover the hole (where the crown was), but you won't be able to change the time or the date. It will cost you just Rs.350 ($7-8)." This guy started thinking and I thought, surely he'll get the crown replaced, but no, he preferred to just let the watch be how it was (with the crown missing) and left. Oh! Did, I mention its monsoon here and rains everyday! Maybe he'll be back soon wondering why his watch has stopped working.

Another lady wanted to have pics of herself on a few watches to probably give away as gifts!

Then the worst kind, a guy asking for fake watches, in his case, fake Rolex Daytonas and Submariners. He also proudly claimed that his dad wears a fake Rolex and gifts them to his friends.

Now if these are the kind of customers I can expect to visit my watch shop, I'm not sure I'm too keen on the idea anymore!

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