Monta's Field Watch - Triumph

[streetracer101]

Can you please explain the pricing as compared to brand's established peers in the price range?

Sure thing. At $2,150, we're about $1,500 less than the North Flag's retail, so I'm not sure the North Flag is a great comparison. That's about 70% more. Of course, you could forego the Tudor warranty and get it at Joma, but that's not for everyone. Even still, it's more costly. I won't get too much into looks, but I'm not a fan of the North Flag, or integrated bracelets in general (except for some Genta designs).

Compared to the Ranger, the SW300 (a clone of an ETA2892), is arguably a superior movement to the 2824. The Ranger retails at $2,900 on a strap, so again, a good chunk more expensive.

As for a pre-owned Aqua Terra, sure, you can find one for high-$2k range, maybe mid-$2k if you really search. However, they may be out of warranty, they may need service, they may be banged up, etc. Comparing new to pre-owned can be done with watches at any price level, and it opens up a different discussion.

There are many other similar style watches made by Longines, Sinn, Damasko, Ball, and Aegir (to name a few) and many of these actually do have tech that stands out. Heck, the Eterna military 1939 is a great watch to compare (similar style and movement) and it is several hundred less than yours at MSRP. One thing you fail to mention is that the brands mentioned offer discounts thru their ADs. It's not unheard of to get a Tudor Ranger sub $2500 from a retailer. By controlling your sales online, the difference in street price between some of the watches you reference is probably within a few hundred dollars.

I'm not on a mission to disagree with everything you type, but I think there should be better transparency and less smoke/mirrors in the advertising. I agree that comparing used to new is rather silly.

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[CGSshorty]

This brand lost me completely when they tried to tell us how incredible the T-Rex hands were on their first release.

[shane0mack]

There are many other similar style watches made by Longines, Sinn, Damasko, Ball, and Aegir (to name a few) and many of these actually do have tech that stands out. Heck, the Eterna military 1939 is a great watch to compare (similar style and movement) and it is several hundred less than yours at MSRP. One thing you fail to mention is that the brands mentioned offer discounts thru their ADs. It's not unheard of to get a Tudor Ranger sub $2500 from a retailer. By controlling your sales online, the difference in street price between some of the watches you reference is probably within a few hundred dollars.

I'm not on a mission to disagree with everything you type, but I think there should be better transparency and less smoke/mirrors in the advertising. I agree that comparing used to new is rather silly.

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FYI, our goal is to be in retailers, which we're currently working on. The online sales are helpful for the initial push to get our watches out there, but we are focusing on a retailer model.

I'd love to help with transparency, what would you like to know?

[Ryeguy]

I am actually interested in the retail strategy. Are you looking at small, regional retailers such as Springers (I see you are from Boston so I thought you might recognize them), or larger, national, retailer such as Tourneau?

In either case, I've not seen them carry micro brands before and I would think they might see risk in stocking an item with an unknown market demand.

Would Monta do some kind of consignment deal with the retailer? Allowing them to test the market for the watch before actually investing in stock?

Just curious.

[ItnStln]

I am actually interested in the retail strategy. Are you looking at small, regional retailers such as Springers (I see you are from Boston so I thought you might recognize them), or larger, national, retailer such as Tourneau?

In either case, I've not seen them carry micro brands before and I would think they might see risk in stocking an item with an unknown market demand.

Would Monta do some kind of consignment deal with the retailer? Allowing them to test the market for the watch before actually investing in stock?

Just curious.

Great question!

[shane0mack]

I am actually interested in the retail strategy. Are you looking at small, regional retailers such as Springers (I see you are from Boston so I thought you might recognize them), or larger, national, retailer such as Tourneau?

In either case, I've not seen them carry micro brands before and I would think they might see risk in stocking an item with an unknown market demand.

Would Monta do some kind of consignment deal with the retailer? Allowing them to test the market for the watch before actually investing in stock?

Just curious.

Good questions. We're definitely focusing on smaller retailers, and it's for two main reasons. One, we like that sort of store; they typically have strong repeat customer bases. And two, they're going to be much more receptive than a chain like Tourneau. We're already hearing great feedback from some of the retailers, and looking to close a couple before Baselworld. As for consignment/memo, we don't want to go that route yet, so we're asking for very small commitments. Big brands force the retailers to buy WAY too many watches and end up dumping off to the grey market just to get money back -- that's ridiculous.

[JP Chestnut]

I am actually interested in the retail strategy. Are you looking at small, regional retailers such as Springers (I see you are from Boston so I thought you might recognize them), or larger, national, retailer such as Tourneau?

In either case, I've not seen them carry micro brands before and I would think they might see risk in stocking an item with an unknown market demand.

Would Monta do some kind of consignment deal with the retailer? Allowing them to test the market for the watch before actually investing in stock?

Just curious.

... Big brands force the retailers to buy WAY too many watches and end up dumping off to the grey market just to get money back -- that's ridiculous.

This is the kind of hyperbolic nonsense that turns people off. My AD who sells Rolex, Tudor, IWC, and Panerai is totally happy with their arrangements.

[streetracer101]

There are many other similar style watches made by Longines, Sinn, Damasko, Ball, and Aegir (to name a few) and many of these actually do have tech that stands out. Heck, the Eterna military 1939 is a great watch to compare (similar style and movement) and it is several hundred less than yours at MSRP. One thing you fail to mention is that the brands mentioned offer discounts thru their ADs. It's not unheard of to get a Tudor Ranger sub $2500 from a retailer. By controlling your sales online, the difference in street price between some of the watches you reference is probably within a few hundred dollars.

I'm not on a mission to disagree with everything you type, but I think there should be better transparency and less smoke/mirrors in the advertising. I agree that comparing used to new is rather silly.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

FYI, our goal is to be in retailers, which we're currently working on. The online sales are helpful for the initial push to get our watches out there, but we are focusing on a retailer model.

I'd love to help with transparency, what would you like to know?

Re transparency - I was referring to your watch price comparison. You keep presenting the illusion that your watch is significantly cheaper than watches like the comparable Tudors, but you neglect to mention that those are almost always discounted by ADs. With the standard discount, your watch is actually priced higher or at least equal to the big box brands with established lineage.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[Ryeguy]

I am actually interested in the retail strategy. Are you looking at small, regional retailers such as Springers (I see you are from Boston so I thought you might recognize them), or larger, national, retailer such as Tourneau?

In either case, I've not seen them carry micro brands before and I would think they might see risk in stocking an item with an unknown market demand.

Would Monta do some kind of consignment deal with the retailer? Allowing them to test the market for the watch before actually investing in stock?

Just curious.

Good questions. We're definitely focusing on smaller retailers, and it's for two main reasons. One, we like that sort of store; they typically have strong repeat customer bases. And two, they're going to be much more receptive than a chain like Tourneau. We're already hearing great feedback from some of the retailers, and looking to close a couple before Baselworld. As for consignment/memo, we don't want to go that route yet, so we're asking for very small commitments. Big brands force the retailers to buy WAY too many watches and end up dumping off to the grey market just to get money back -- that's ridiculous.

That's interesting.

I've not done a full business plan review in a while, but quick Google searching indicates there are 29,352 jewelry stores in the United States and Canada (source: http://www.nationaljeweler.com/independ ... 24-percent). As you can see from the article, this number is actually on the decline.

Assuming not all of those stores sell men's watches, and not all are located in regions Monta would like to support, and factoring the general lack of name recognition, I would predict your market penetration to be maybe .5%, or 147 retail jewelry stores. I'd be focusing on the West Coast and in areas where the average household income was in excess of $150K per year.

If you provide a 50% discount to your jewelry store customers and make a minimum order quantity of 2 watches, you would be looking at generating approximately $315,534.00 in revenue. You would have to deduct your cost of sale (convincing the store to carry your product), so let's say $250,000 in gross margin.

Combining those figures with a bit of a challenging report such as this: http://edahngolan.com/Docs/Edahn_Golan- ... Market.pdf I'm not certain this is the wisest decision.

Alternatively, Monta could focus in on the RedBar events and those interested in investing $2,150 in a unique, limited, bespoke watch and generate the same revenue at a reduced cost by selling less than 150 watches.

You could leverage this enthusiast traction to generate name recognition, then build your retail business from there.

Just my $.02

[Ryeguy]

There are many other similar style watches made by Longines, Sinn, Damasko, Ball, and Aegir (to name a few) and many of these actually do have tech that stands out. Heck, the Eterna military 1939 is a great watch to compare (similar style and movement) and it is several hundred less than yours at MSRP. One thing you fail to mention is that the brands mentioned offer discounts thru their ADs. It's not unheard of to get a Tudor Ranger sub $2500 from a retailer. By controlling your sales online, the difference in street price between some of the watches you reference is probably within a few hundred dollars.

I'm not on a mission to disagree with everything you type, but I think there should be better transparency and less smoke/mirrors in the advertising. I agree that comparing used to new is rather silly.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

FYI, our goal is to be in retailers, which we're currently working on. The online sales are helpful for the initial push to get our watches out there, but we are focusing on a retailer model.

I'd love to help with transparency, what would you like to know?

Re transparency - I was referring to your watch price comparison. You keep presenting the illusion that your watch is significantly cheaper than watches like the comparable Tudors, but you neglect to mention that those are almost always discounted by ADs. With the standard discount, your watch is actually priced higher or at least equal to the big box brands with established lineage.

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

I've never worked in or sold watches in a retail establishment, but I've got to think Monta would sell the watch to the retail store for $1,075 (50% of MSRP) and the retail store would likely offer a 30% discount to try to gain market traction. The street price for this watch would maybe be $1,500, where the sales person earns a $100 commission on the sale and the retailer earns $330 to cover the overhead.

[JP Chestnut]

At a grand this brand starts making sense.

[toxicavenger]

At a grand this brand starts making sense.

I would pull the trigger at 1k.

[Ryeguy]

This in itself is an interesting market analysis.

Sell it at $1K to the forum crowd. Sell 300 watches

Sell it at $2K to the RedBar crowd. Sell 150 watches

Sell it at $1K to retail stores - need to find 150 stores willing to stock 2 copies of an unknown brand in order to equal the gross revenue of the above two options.

Hell - selling to the forum crowd at $1K is probably your easiest path to revenue. Being communicative, relatively transparent, and producing a quality product and you'll blow through your revenue goals. RedBar would be more fun, but $25 drinks would eat into your profits!

[streetracer101]

This in itself is an interesting market analysis.

Sell it at $1K to the forum crowd. Sell 300 watches

Sell it at $2K to the RedBar crowd. Sell 150 watches

Sell it at $1K to retail stores - need to find 150 stores willing to stock 2 copies of an unknown brand in order to equal the gross revenue of the above two options.

Hell - selling to the forum crowd at $1K is probably your easiest path to revenue. Being communicative, relatively transparent, and producing a quality product and you'll blow through your revenue goals. RedBar would be more fun, but $25 drinks would eat into your profits!

Keep in mind that there is a limited # of RB tards out there. If you build a quality product and price it appropriately, it'll sell. Only time will tell if that will be the case with Monta.

I gather there is a ton of capital backing this endeavor. It'll be interesting to see what will happen to the MSRP if it doesn't take off as intended. I venture to say that $1500 would be a price that could garner a fair bit of enthusiasm, but the MSRP is steep as is.

I've been surprised before. Bremont lists their watches starting at about $4k and they are still in business, so I guess anything is possible with good marketing/hype machine.

[james80]

This in itself is an interesting market analysis.

Sell it at $1K to the forum crowd. Sell 300 watches

Sell it at $2K to the RedBar crowd. Sell 150 watches

Sell it at $1K to retail stores - need to find 150 stores willing to stock 2 copies of an unknown brand in order to equal the gross revenue of the above two options.

Hell - selling to the forum crowd at $1K is probably your easiest path to revenue. Being communicative, relatively transparent, and producing a quality product and you'll blow through your revenue goals. RedBar would be more fun, but $25 drinks would eat into your profits!

Same revenue for double the volume only works if the cost is very low.

[Ryeguy]

This in itself is an interesting market analysis.

Sell it at $1K to the forum crowd. Sell 300 watches

Sell it at $2K to the RedBar crowd. Sell 150 watches

Sell it at $1K to retail stores - need to find 150 stores willing to stock 2 copies of an unknown brand in order to equal the gross revenue of the above two options.

Hell - selling to the forum crowd at $1K is probably your easiest path to revenue. Being communicative, relatively transparent, and producing a quality product and you'll blow through your revenue goals. RedBar would be more fun, but $25 drinks would eat into your profits!

Same revenue for double the volume only works if the cost is very low.

Well, in both the retail and the forum sales model, the volume is 300 units and the revenue is approximately $1,000 per unit.

The RedBar model is the most potentially lucrative as you only need to sell half as many units to achieve the same revenue, but that isn't the model they reportedly are interested in pursuing.

With the forum model you have a relatively low cost of sale (just forum participation and shipping). With the retail model you have the costs associated with convincing retail outlets to carry your products. I would expect there is a lot of trips, product demos and meetings required to just get a store to carry your product.

From that report I posted earlier, the study shows that only stores with $5M+ in revenue get a meaningful percentage of their sales revenue from watches. Diamonds are the mainstay of most independent jewelry stores, not watches.

[shane0mack]

I guess we'll have to wait and see if the retailer method works. We're confident in it, but time will tell.

[JP Chestnut]

No matter what, it's definitely a great time to be jumping in to the watch biz.

[Ryeguy]

Jacob states in 16 words what took me 5 paragraphs to write.

[bzabodyn]

Loving the conversation going on - when the OceanKing first came out, the discussion was (and still is) very similar. My concerns were exactly like everyone's here - mainly centered around the price of what are the first releases from an unknown brand. Knowing a couple of the Monta dudes from the Everest side (I've been a customer/fanboy of Everest from the beginning) I was lucky enough to get a couple weeks with the OceanKing and was beyond impressed - the finishing and level of detail to the case/bracelet is admirable and even though it has a solid caseback the movement is still beautiful. It will definitely blend in nicely with my collection which has everything from Oak & Oscars to Rolexes and APs.

Honestly, the Triumph is probably not something I'm going to be interested in (just not my typical go-to watch purchase) - but who knows, maybe when I see one in person I'll change my tune, esp with all the dial color combos. Now, the GMT they are coming out with at Basel - the Skyquest - is a looker and definitely is in the want list.

Ultimately, just like my connection/friendship with Chase at Oak & Oscar, I want Mike/Justin/Pat/Shane and the rest of the team at Monta to be successful and continue to bring new releases to the market. For those that say they wish these were $1k watches - trust me, if you actually get a chance to put one on, you'll see where the money was spent. Don't have to like it or agree, but still can appreciate a valiant effort this early in their life cycle.



BZ

[toxicavenger]

^^Good feedback Brandon. But you know everyone has doubts like this about a bunch of brands when you can't see them in the flesh. And unfortunately in pics the quality just doesn't translate. Hell look at Grand Seiko, they still face this dilemma everyday and they have been doing this for a long time.

[BBK357]

"304 meters"

Ugh why'd they have to do that


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[59yukon01]

The OceanKing from that picture looks very nice, especially on the fitted rubber.

[hoppyjr]

This thread makes my head hurt.