Hodinkee Joins Forces With Watches Of Switzerland

So how did we get here? Well, it’s a long, winding story – but suffice it to say, Hodinkee has always been a business that people liked and respected. Famously, we received our first acquisition offer over ten years ago, when we were all of three people. Instead, we raised money and went out on our own. That was around 2015 or so. Around the same time, I received an email from a friend in Europe saying I should talk to some folks at the largest UK retailer because they were thinking about the U.S. market. I did – and those people were Brian Duffy and David Hurley, then, and still now, the guys behind the Watches of Switzerland Group. We got along great, and I remember thinking then, “Wow, if these guys came into the U.S. – it would really, really shake things up.” And it has. And all for the better – because you have to remember just how, well, bad watch retail was in the U.S. 10 years ago. Sure, you could get watches more easily, but the product was often commoditized, with poor experiences for the consumer more frequent than was deserved. Watches of Switzerland, when they came into the U.S., helped change that and, with it, the entire retail scene here. With Watches of Switzerland in place, others had to level up, and they did. The U.S. market is now the largest, and most stable, market for watches in the world.