Thoughts on buying watches online

Seeing so many online posts aboutbuying watches onlinethey are either spam ads or buyers crying out about being scammed again. Today I will share my own watch-buying experience, hoping it will be of a little help to fellow enthusiasts.

First, choose a professional store. What is meant by professional? It is the store's understanding of watches. Imagine this: if the store itself doesn't understand watches, what guarantee can they bring to the buyer? They might just be sourcing from others to make a price difference. If your watch really runs into any problems, such a store won't be able to solve it and will have to rely on their supplier, wasting time. Most stores keep bragging about how good the quality is and how after-sales service is guaranteed; in their mouths, there is nothing bad. But the store I chose rarely told me these promotional lines; instead, they first understood my wrist size and some of my requirements for a watch, confirming whether this watch was suitable for me to wear. I was very satisfied with this and felt they were very responsible towards customers.

Secondly, choose a pragmatic store. I personally think that a store doing business down-to-earth doesn't need to exaggerate or have so many fancy ads; they just let the quality speak for itself. In order to buy a watch, I wandered around Taobao and some watch websites for nearly a month, chatting with the store owner every day about watches, and finally chose one. What made me choose him? From my chats with him, I could feel his sincerity and reliability. He patiently explained watches to me and taught me about them, which not only allowed me to buy a satisfying watch but also taught me a lot of watch knowledge.

Thirdly, choose a trustworthy store. The most headache-inducing thing about buying watches online is receiving something that doesn't match the description and has very poor quality; buying what was supposed to be a Swiss movement only for it to turn out to be a domestic movement; frequent stopping, serious timekeeping errors, and so on. These problems cannot be found before purchase; they are only discovered after receiving the watch or even after using it for a while. Many online merchants make solemn promises, but once a problem occurs, they push the blame with various excuses, and sometimes you can't even find them. The watch I bought is very satisfying in terms of appearance and quality, matching the description given by the store. I took it to a watch shop for testing, and it is indeed a genuine ETA movement along with a sapphire crystal; to test the water resistance, I threw it directly into water to soak for half an hour, and no water entered; 24 timekeeping error 8 seconds. I am still very satisfied with these test results. Therefore, I have reason to believe the store's motto: before shipping, I help you perform various performance tests.

To test the store's integrity and after-sales commitment, I had an even more ruthless trick: 3 days later, I called the store and said the watch had a problem and stopped. The store patiently asked about the specific situation and quickly gave a reply: send the watch back, I will help you test it, and if it is indeed a quality issue, I will help you exchange it. I sent the watch back to the store (SF Express cash on delivery, fulfilling the buyer's 7-day service commitment). During this period, I contacted the store, insisting there was a quality issue and requesting an exchange, or at least a movement replacement, since I knew that once a watch is worn, the case will leave traces, and I didn't want to make things too difficult for the store. 3 days later, I received the watch, and the round-trip time was a total of 5 days. Tested again, all performances were still the same as before, and the movement was also confirmed to have been replaced. In fact, my watch had no problems at all. I have bought 5 watches from that store so far, and every single watch lives up to its store name—consistent inside and out. I am extremely satisfied with this.

The above are my thoughts on buying watches online, hoping it will be helpful to everyone.