Microbrand Bangalore Watch Company aims to bridge the luxury segment gap

Watches today are more about a style statement than serving a functional need. The market offers a range of watches for every pocket from cheap shopping mall fashion brands to high-end luxury brands today.

According to recent estimates, the affordable luxury wristwatch segment has the highest market share of about 44 percent in the premium wristwatch market in India. This segment of watches mostly attracts the young urban population with higher spending income. It was expected to more than double in FY2018 by experiencing a high growth at a CAGR of 23.3 percent in the period FY2014-FY2018.

It is this segment that homegrown microbrands like Jaipur Watch Company, Horpa, Aiqon, and such are hoping to serve. Among them is the Bangalore Watch Company that was launched in 2017 from Bengaluru.

Market for microbrands

It is one of the few microbrands that is leveraging the internet economy with a direct-to-consumer sales model overriding the traditional retail and distribution chain. Started by Nirupesh Joshi and Mercy Amalraj, the Bangalore Watch Company is a tribute to the couple’s love for the city they call home.

The husband-wife duo left their tech careers in Hong Kong to pursue their passion for fine watchmaking. “We’ve travelled across the world and took a special interest in the watchmaking industry,” says Nirupesh. They relocated to Bengaluru to start the Bangalore Watch Company in 2017.

The two have a combined two decades of technology experience spanning sales, quality assurance, solutions design, and strategy along with an eye for personal fashion that allowed them to quickly pivot into the microbrand watch industry. After over a year of learning the trade, scouting for the best suppliers, design, and prototyping, they launched their limited debut collection called, the Renaissance Automatic collection, last year.

According to Nirupesh, the horology (the art of making clocks and watches) scene in India is that the market is bipolar. “There are the luxury watchmakers on one side with their extensive distribution channels, and then there are the mass-produced brands in different segments at the other end,” he says.

The cost of these luxury watches starts from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh, while the fashion brands fall into the Rs 2000 to Rs 10,000 bracket. “There’s a huge gap here. We would like to fill that with high-quality watches by making them available online and bypassing the retail chain,” says Nirupesh. This saves them nearly 40 percent of the manufacturing cost.

Giving an example, Nirupesh says, “At one of the biggest watch fairs in Basel, Switzerland, retailers have to pay upfront for units (watches). The money that the retailers pay upfront is subsidising the cost of manufacturing for the brands.”

Watchmaking is capital intensive. Thus to avoid this, in places like Singapore, Australia, and Hong Kong, there are a lot of microbrands that are emerging riding on the online retail strategy. Something that worked well for the Bangalore Watch Company that is bootstrapped and running on the savings put in by the founders.

Renaissance collection

Its Renaissance collection is a limited edition consisting of 500 pieces each uniquely numbered. Each watch is priced at around Rs 40,000 and the two founders are excited about shipping them to customers across the world.

“The fact that we are able to offer it at this price despite the fine craftsmanship and use of top quality materials (crystals are procured from Switzerland, movement from Japan, and case body from Hong Kong) is because we save on the retail and distribution,” says Nirupesh. The micromanufacturing happens in Hong Kong but the final assembly is made in Bengaluru.

Mercy says they do not have a hundred percent manufacturing facility in the city because it was difficult for them to find vendors who could supply world-class quality parts and the fact that a minimum quantity orders are high for manufacturing partners here.

Though the founders shied from disclosing the cost of manufacturing the watches, Nirupesh says, “We are making mechanical watches and not the regular quartz watches. So for example, the latest generation caliber alone costs us upwards of $70.”

The couple says that since they are bootstrapped, they are looking to scale in a linear fashion and not exponentially. “We hope to sell all our pieces from this collection and then move on to the next one. Now we are doing one collection a year, and once we get on to doing two collections a year, it will be a measure for our success.”

Website: (www.bangalorewatchco.in)