Is Doxa a boutique brand?

[wildbills watches]

Is Doxa a boutique brand or is it an actual name brand like Omega...Rolex..Citizen and so on? I have nevr seen them sold in stores. I used to buy alot of boutique divers but I think I want to start buying watches that hold a name for themselves and will always be worth something no matter what

[Rusty_Shakleford]

Interesting question. Sorry for the long-winded reply...

The answer would depend on your definition of "boutique brands". Based on the wording of your question, I'm not sure that your definition and mine are the same thing.

It appears that what you are calling "Boutique Brands" are what I would call "Private Label" brands. My definition of a "Private Label" would be a brand that is not owned by a large conglomerate and does not actually produce any part of their watches. They merely broker the sale of watches with their name on them. They may or may not handle the assembly. Some examples would be Helson, Deep Blue, Korsbek, Kremke, Steinhart, and Boschett. There are, of course, many others. Some manufacturers of watches for these brands include Fullswing and Fricker both of whom are capable of producing high quality end products that bear the name of the private label. While to some this business model is a bit like cheating, I have no issue with it. I own watches from three of the six that I listed and enjoy wearing them. This business model allows for a lot of competition that helps to keep prices down for us collectors while also allowing the brands that want to put in the effort of creating their own unique designs to separate themselves from the pack. For an example of a "Private Label" producing models that separate themselves from the pack look into Crepas or Halios. IMO, those guys are are setting the standard of what a "Private Label" can be.

Doxa on the other hand is the epitome of what I would call a "Boutique Brand". They are not a purely independent company but are also not owned by one of the primary conglomerates in the industry, LVMH, Swatch, or Richemont. They are owned by the Jenny family who are a well respected multi-generational watchmaking family. Jenny were the manufacturers of the original Doxa SUB watches in the late 1960's and early 1970's so there is still a clear lineage from the original SUBs to the current re-issues in spite of the fact that the Doxa brand changed hands a few times over the years prior to ending up with Jenny. I cannot think of a better steward of the Doxa brand than Jenny unless George Ducommun rises from the grave to reclaim the company.

As far as categorizing the brand, low production numbers as well as original, unique designs that are created and manufactured by the company or the parent company qualify Doxa as a "Boutique Brand" in my book. One of the things that I most like about Doxa is the fact that they meet my definition of a "True Boutique" while their watches sell at prices that allow someone like me to purchase them. While a company like Patek Philippe would meet my criteria of a boutique the price prohibits me from enjoying them. Doxa is more of an "Every Man's Boutique Brand". The price is high enough to allow for a high quality end product as well as high enough that the person buying it should have to make a conscious decision to buy in however it is low enough that most of the people who would be interested in the brand can save up enough to buy one. Doxa, to someone like me, put out watches that may take six months or even a year of setting money aside to make the purchase. It's a matter of skipping going to the movies, buying some probably unnecessary new clothes, or eating out as much. A Patek Philippe would run me somewhere between the price of a new luxury car, which I do not drive, and the price of my house. Like I said, there are "Boutique Brands" across the price spectrum but I appreciate where Doxa land on the scale.

Now, back to your original question, the wording of which seems to carry some condescension in it. I've taken the time to answer based on an assumption that you are not trolling by posting a deliberately confrontational topic on the Doxa forum. I suppose that we shall see if common ground can be reached. I'm unclear about what you mean by "actual name brand like Omega...Rolex..Citizen". Perhaps you are referring to mainstream brands that can be found in mall stores or jewelry stores. Personally, I do not use this as a basis for determining much of anything about a brand. Factors such as slick marketing and high profile product placement do little to sway my buying habits. I buy watches that I like the look of as long as I do not have any other reasons to avoid them. This can be anything from shady business practices to dishonest pricing to well documented terrible customer service. These, as in any type of business, can be found in watch companies of all sizes and types.

Regards,

RS

[gaopa]

Well done, Rusty! I like your answer to the question. Cheers, Bill P.

[Big_Red]

Nicely thought out RS... I feel like I got my 'daily lesson' from professor RS today

[Steve Tracy]

I say there's no way Doxa could be considered a "boutique brand" by any interpretation of the words. In my opinion, a boutique brand conjours the concept of a "boutique" store. A one off, single storefront, with only a few employees, run on a shoestring, and selling a very unique product. The opposite would be a "big box" store like Target, Wal-Mart, or K-Mart. In between are smaller chains well below the big box store power, but a chain with many medium sized stores throughout the country.

You can buy a sport coat and shirt and tie and dress pants at Target. You can buy a very nice suit at Jos. A. Bank or The Men's Wearhouse. You can also buy a unique, hand tailored suit in Europe at small, boutique shops.

Timex is at stores like Target. Rolex, Tag, Omega, Tissot, Movado, are at jewelry stores. Small makers of limited edition watches numbering in only the hundreds (total production) costing tens of thousands of dollars would be sold at "one-off" shops or via the internet.

Doxa watches are sold in jewelry stores throughout Europe and Asia, but not in the US. I believe that if Doxa SUBs were sold retail in the US, they would cost $6000-$10000 each. Right there with Rolex and Omega. The price mark up for US retailers is 50%+. The stores do have to cover their overhead. That's why I think Doxa is such a good value compared to other big brands.

I think the numbers of sold Doxa SUBs far outreach those of what most consider to be "boutique" brands selling only a couple hundred watches per year (if that).

There is a big difference between Doxa the company that sells watches worldwide and the online Doxa that sells only SUB dive watches.

[gaopa]

Steve, you gave a good response as well, IMHO. Cheers, Bill P.

[chas1133]

I think from this point on it should be "Sir Rusty"...

[Steve Tracy]

Sir Rusty does make some very valid points however, after thinking about this question for a day now, I think Doxa falls into their own, totally unique, one of a kind, unlike any other, classification.

Doxa is a very old brand going back to 1889. That alone cannot qualify as a small boutique brand. They sell watches worldwide in so many different styles that there's no way they could ever be considered a boutique brand.

However, when it comes to the online sales of the SUB watches, Doxa contrasts against Rolex, Omega, Tag, Tissot, Movado, etc because of the amazing and greatly appreciated attention that they give to their customers. Doxa actually asks for our input concerning new watches. They listen and then incorporate the desires of their customers. Doxa posts teaser photos of upcoming watches here on this forum. The attention given to us is much, much more like that of a boutique watchmaker than of a huge company.

I think their are big box store watches, jewelry store watches, boutique watches...and then there's Doxa in it's own category, falling in between the jewelry store and boutique watches. The Doxa Category.

[Rusty_Shakleford]

I had started typing up a response to Steve's well thought out points but I got sidetracked last night. Catching up on season 2 of Game of Thrones will do that to a nerd like me. I'll go ahead and post it below in quotes but it looks like we are pretty much on the same page. I'm still interested to see if the OP is going to decide to weigh in...

Steve makes some good points. It's really just labeling semantics but using the example of the suits, what would one call a brand that produced very low, by industry standards, production numbers of high quality handmade suits that that were available in select stores in Europe and Asia and had to be ordered to the US? In the US, I would feel comfortable calling that a boutique brand if I were trying to explain the brand to an interested party.

I may have created my own mental definition of the term but I base it on production numbers and quality and not necessarily where the product is sold. I suspect that the origin did come from products that were created and sold in their own specialty shops but those days seem to be behind us. The global market is now such that big box stores really only compete with the internet for sales. The Boutiques of old are going away daily so we are forced to allow the term to adapt to today's reality or abandon it altogether.

As far as production numbers go, the SUB re-issues, are still well below what I would call boutique numbers. Not including the non SUB models, I estimate that Doxa have made, not sold, an average somewhere around 2000 watches per year. That is at the highest possible numbers based on limited edition maximums that we all know have not all been produced or released. Compare that to Rolex, Omega, Hamilton, Oris, or any of the more well known brands and it becomes, to me, difficult to not put Doxa in the boutique category. Of course there are many other brands that produce far fewer watches than Doxa but that doesn’t change the fact that Doxa

I can't really comment on the availability of Doxas in other parts of the world as my limited world traveling did not allow too much time for watch browsing. I hope to rectify that in the future but for now I can only comment on my experience here in the US. If we are to take into account the watches produced for other markets than I cannot really comment as I have no references or, as I said, firsthand knowledge. While I agree that it is fair to include the non-Western models in the discussion I also think that it is possible for a company to have different types of business models depending on the area. I’m at a loss to think of a good example so I’ll throw out a hypothetical one. Say an American restaurant chain, let’s use Cracker Barrel, decided to open up in Europe. They decide go a different route there. Rather than putting a restaurant at every freeway exit, they keep the operation small, maybe one location every couple of hundred square miles. They tweak the menu to have a more refined American menu and charge accordingly. Would a Frenchman’s description of the place be different from an American’s? I would think so. Of course, this is not the best example but it’s all that I can come up with on a holiday weekend. We’ll have to suspend disbelief that a Frechman would ever eat at a Cracker Barrel, haha.

[Rusty_Shakleford]

Gentlemen and Ladies (Surely we have a few ladies stop by every now and then),

I just want to drop a friendly reminder to please do not feed the trolls. Doxa has, like any other watch company big or small, it's detractors that get some sort of perverse pleasure from stirring the pot with posts containing unsubstantiated, and frankly libelous, claims. It is an unfortunate by-product of the freedom of anonymity that the internet allows and we fully support that freedom however we, as a community, need to continue to help each other keep the house clean and that, unfortunately, means taking out the trash every now and then. This is not unique to Doxa. Rolex and Omega deal with it, as do Adiddas and Nike. So does Ferarri, Oreo Cookies, and Gerber baby food. No one is immune. Well, almost no one. Surely no internet troll would dare to defame the great Atlanta Braves. That someone would even consider that is just crazy talk, haha.

Seriously though, please use the "Report Post" link, located on the bottom left corner, for any post that you feel is either a violation of WUS Forum rules, SPAM, trolling, etc. The Mods, myself included, will investigate and take the appropriate action whatever that may be. This could include deleting posts, entire threads, issuing warnings, and\or banning users. In some case no action is required. That's the way we prefer it but don't worry about reporting a borderline post. Deciding if it is a violation is our job so don't hesitate to click the link if you notice something amiss. You can also report offending PM's if you recieve any. SPAM, offensive content as outlined in the WUS rules, and general trolling are not tolerated in PM's just as they are not in posts in the public forums.



Look, we don't want to fool with this stuff. We want to talk about watches and lie about fishing, or is it the other way around? Nope, that's it. What no one wants is to this forum or any other on WUS descend into anarchy. We've all seen forums that do not take the time to keep things focused on the topics at hand and how much fun is that? Wading through the nonsense makes having an intelligent discussion impossible. Personally, I am pround to be associated with the Doxa Forum as a Moderator and with the Doxa brand in my limited capacity. I enjoy our discussions and the pics that get shared almost as much as I enjoy wearing my 750T Pro.

Thanks to everyone that participates in the Forum and now let's get back to talking watches...

Regards,

RS