That is hyperbole, of course, as sales people will engage with you. They probably won’t try that hard but they aren’t going to ignore someone if they aren’t busy. Like other good salespeople, they are good at sizing up potential customers and ask appropriate questions to determine the potential sale. Taking a Piaget off your wrist to try on a A. Lange & Söhne will get their attention. Having a Casio would likely not.
However, the point is taken that sellers of less famous brands are much more likely to recognize real aficionados while Rolex stores have to deal more with the curious general public.
Among my friends in Japan who were watch enthusiasts, I can’t remember any of them buying a Rolex just because the brand has a reputation for the nouveau riche crowd. There isn’t anything wrong with the watches but aficionados tend to buy things that the general public isn’t really aware of. Definitely too much of an elitist attitude.
Having spent a fair amount of time researching, discussing and buying watches, I can say that the reaction from salespeople did change as I got more knowledgeable and more opinionated over aesthetics which most people rightfully don’t care about.
I think the most expensive watch I was ever shown was at a watch show in Tokyo and the Vacheron Constantin had a $250,000 watch. I told them that was well out of my budget but they insisted on just showing it. Watching other customers, that item didn’t come out of the back that often.
This is an example of a sales floor for a higher end store.
High end customers tend to know what they want, rather than come in a pick one off the shelf, so you are less likely to stand at the counter and point.
Even this is by someone who could become an enthusiast as she says:
That is not a typical non-watch person. We can use my wife as an example. Watches are “pretty” or “not pretty”, “cute” or “not cute” or functional. She’s as happy with a $50 watch as anything else, which is fine. She has her hobbies that she gets more enjoyment from.
Hah - as a side note: a family friend sent gifts from Tiffany for each of our kids. The first kid got a cup and bowl - highly breakable stuff. The second kid got a silver bowl. Not as breakable at least.
Both are still in their original boxes in a closet. It was a sweet gesture, and the silver bowl at least has some “heirloom” quality, but neither was practical. I periodically debate attempting to sell them, but just can’t be bothered.
Re regular car shopping and test drives: I’m surprised at those who’ve basically only test driven ones they went on to buy. While we often know exactly what we want beforehand, and it’s kind of pro-forma, there’ve been several times where we thought we wanted such-and-such, then found we disliked it intensely. On our most recent shopping event, we had an open mind about brands, but knew we had to have some specific features. We went to about 4 different dealerships (iirc, Toyota, Hyundai, Ford and Honda), and stymied the staff by saying “No, we don’t want to test drive, we just want to be able to SIT in the car” (as, frankly, ease of entry / exit was the top priority). The Toyotas involved bending my neck in ways nature did not intend (one of them, I literally could not get into the passenger seat). The Hyundai was unremarkable. The Ford was OK (we later ruled it out for other reasons). The Honda - I didn’t even think about any issues with getting into it - it wasn’t until after we left that I realized what a nonissue it was.
Anyway - interesting on the Ferrari. So much for my next vehicle being a fun-mobile!! (well, given our “ease of entry / exit” requirement, it wasn’t on the short list anyway). I’m a little surprised at the “cannot sell within 2 years” bullshit - how is that enforceable??
Three of the five times I have been sure I wanted a certain make of model, the test drive disabused me of that notion and I ended up buying another car.
The last one we might have gone with a Toyota Highlander but the salespeople were incredible assholes so we went to check out the Honda dealership right across the street. Now we realize that they were just regular Massholes. We had just moved here.
Being a watch-afficionado pretty much all my life, there is somewhat of a Rolex-curve …
FIRST UP: now that I have money, I buy a Rolex, b/c its the best watch in the world, everybody knows that
THEN DOWN: no more Rlx, it makes me look like they typical new-rich-watch-ignorant
THEN UP AGAIN: Damn, that e.g. 39mm Oyster Perpetual with the blue 3-6-9 sunburst dial on the Oyster bracelet is really a darn good value proposition, and outstanding watch with the parachrome balance cock
In short: there are very few watch aficionados that don’t have a Rolex (or 3) in their “garage” … It just another watch at this point…
The prejudice concerning the brand comes mostly from the non-aficionados … the aficionados are busy fighting about the fact that the second hand of a given model does not reach the minute track by 0.5mm - which we all know is a complete no-no! ;o)
Anna Sorokin aka Delvey when dealing with banks would ditch designer clothes for stuff like sweatpants, skip bathing, and treat bank officers with utter contempt as part of her heiress act and it worked like a charm.
Hah! If the Honda people were not Massholes (love that term!!), then you absolutely did right!
The car I could literally not fit into was a Toyota Venza. I had trouble with the RAV4 also, though I was able to get in, just not as comfortably. We weren’t interested in going up a level to the Highlander (comparable to a Honda Pilot, I assume). So, no clue whether I could have managed that - likely I could have. The CRV was a non-issue, neck-wise, so that’s what we got. It’s not ideal for transporting elderly parents, though. Since we tend to keep cars forever, hopefully we’ll still be able to get in and out of it by the time we have to retire it!!
Oh no, they were the same, and we did not buy from them either. But they did “allow” us to test drive both a CRV and a Pilot. The reason we did not end up in a Highlander is that when my wife said the ride in the RAV-4 was too stiff and it felt like it would tip over (there was lots of concern in those days about SUV rollovers) the salesperson got all huffy and didn’t want to take us out in a Highlander. “You guys need to know what you want before you come out!”
We ended up buying from a Honda dealer 20 miles further out in an area where there was more competition.
BTW, Massholes isn’t taken as an insult by most folks in Eastern Massachusetts at least.
Yeah. I wanted a Prius until i tried to pull it out of the lot. The A pillar blocked my view of incoming traffic, and the simple merge was challenging. Not a good fit for me. And on paper, the Chrysler Pacifica plug in hybrid looked awesome, but i hated the way it drove.
It’s always interesting when outsiders invalidate Japanese people’s culture and assume they know better than Japanese people concerning what Japanese people like or don’t like.
Having lived or being associated with Japan for over 40 years now, and spending more than 25 years of that in international business, specifically importing Western products into the Japanese market, I cannot tell you the number of manufacturers who insist that Japanese are wrong about their own market, let alone ordinary people who try to say what Japan is or isn’t like.
I even opened up a Japanese office for an US manufacturer and spend the next ten years fighting with the head office over what would and wouldn’t work in the Japanese market.
Having been a watch aficionado for much of that time, and having countless discussions with Japanese aficionados, then I spoke specifically about my experience: “among my friends in Japan who were watch enthusiasts” were the exact words I used. I didn’t speak for Western aficionados, I don’t know why it’s necessary to invalid Japanese ones.
