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Dallas Tourneau Closing!

8K views 52 replies 28 participants last post by  OvrSteer 
#1 ·
I happened to be in the Galleria today and saw that the Dallas location is closing on April 29. The sales associate and said they were discounting between 20 and 40%. I was very interested in seeing some of their offerings at these prices. Unfortunately the 20 to 40% off refers to MSRP rather than some previously discounted price. I looked at a couple Hamiltons only to find out that their discounted price was still about 30% above the Gray market.

Maybe this explains why they're going out of business.


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#12 ·
If gray market is going to be brought up, I wonder if the blame goes to Tourneau or to the gray market.

The Tourneau here in DC recently moved to a new space in the same mall, but farther away from the entrance. (They suffered a smash-n-grab a few years ago, and the thieves had hustled out of the mall less than a minute after breaking the Rolex display case. I'll bet the store started planning the move the next morning) I wonder how they're doing in revenue these days.
 
#15 ·
If gray market is going to be brought up, I wonder if the blame goes to Tourneau or to the gray market.
To me, the value of the gray market is that it shows me the absolute floor for a watch. I don't necessarily expect an AD to match a GM price, and I don't mind supporting local business, but the AD has to be willing to deal. Most watches I like aren't well discounted on Jomashop, for example. So for example, the ExpII I just got was something like 15% off on Jomashop, but the AD I bought from sold me the watch for almost 11% off. If I'm that hard up to save a few hundred dollars, then I have no business buying a watch with an MSRP of $8100. And for the Oris I bought, it was 60% off MSRP at an AD because they wanted to get rid of it.

The bottom line is that there's no reason to ever go into a tourneau, let alone buy from them. They can all close and it would have no bearing on my watch purchasing.
 
#16 · (Edited)
When the Internet happened, a lot of brick and mortar businesses went out of business. A lot of Gen Y and millenials shop exclusively online. I forsee a future where nobody goes out of their house anymore. And also a lot of credit card fraud and online scam jobs.. Welcome to the future.

As a computer science graduate, I do not trust the Net at all. I see it as one big daisy chain of PCs linked up with little or no security. Also, a lot of credit card details that you give out online get stored in their servers forever. Imagine what would happen if some young punk decided to hack into the servers or an employee there decided to prod the files for a quick shopping spree..
 
#21 ·
When the Internet happened, a lot of brick and mortar businesses went out of business. A lot of Gen Y and millenials shop exclusively online. I forsee a future where nobody goes out of their house anymore. And also a lot of credit card fraud and online scam jobs.. Welcome to the future.

As a computer science graduate, I do not trust the Net at all. I see it as one big daisy chain of PCs linked up with little or no security. Also, a lot of credit card details that you give out online get stored in their servers forever. Imagine what would happen if some young punk decided to hack into the servers or an employee there decided to prod the files for a quick shopping spree..
That's not a very smart thoughts and there is lot more to it than storing data on servers and someone hacking. Also, every credit card company will reimburse your amount if there is unauthorized transaction and you report it and more easily if its a shopping spree. I don't think you will ever loose your $$$ in such instance. You have nothing to worry.. there are folks in millions who are using and even with data hacking happening all over, there is hardly anyone who lost money from their pockets!
 
#17 ·
Always sad to see a business close (even though I'm not a fan of Tourneau)... But I am surprised they operate in so many places as it is.
I understand they may do ok in NYC where you have tourists buying at MSRP by a busload. But outside of that customer segment - I'm not sure I understand tourneau model. Yes, they have a huge variety which is a plus, but they don't budge on prices, sales staff is not very knowledgeable and they offer no real differentiated service to justify buying from them vs elsewhere.
In my view, for B&M watch seller to thrive, they either need to have a very loyal client base, great pricing, or some sort of service differentiation. Don't see Tourneau as hitting any of these...
 
#18 ·
Sadly, the Internet is crushing the bricks and mortar locations and many times their hands are tied on how low they can go on a piece depending on brand. In addition, even if you could buy it for the same price you Always have to pay sales tax at a store. So for me it's an additional 7 - 8%. Really not a fair fight.
 
#19 ·
Maybe the company should of offered better discounts in the past (not just when they are closing down) and also better buying offers. Yea, I had plenty of experience with them. 10 years ago they were better in these ways, at least in NYC. Sorry for the employees who have to be out of work I wish them luck in their future job prospects.
 
#42 ·
Hope ours in Hawaii doesn't go down for the sake of the employees too . . . I was able to purchase a few watches from T a few years ago when they were offering discounts and it was a very satisfactory experience, not just financial. With recent policy changes (I suppose) no more discounting, hopefully they will survive here in Waikiki . . .
 
#22 ·
very sad, since I am often in DFW and sometimes end up with downtime. A brick and mortar place to try on new and old watches is really a luxury. I have bought many watches online sight unseen only to have them languish in the drawer. I hope the San Francisco location where I live has enough tourists to sustain them. I would pay 5 to 10% more to support a local business, but not more. Other commenters were correct: I ALWAYS know more about the watch than the salesperson. The exception has been the Tourbilion, Topper's, and Shrieve boutiques in the San Francisco bay area. Their staff have the passion and the full blown Mad Watch Disease!
 
#23 ·
I want to tap the breaks on the blame going to the ADs here. As I understand the AD agreements the manufacturers require them to sign, each AD must purchase a given number of units regardless of whether the AD thinks he can sell that many. Furthermore, I believe that the AD is limited by the agreement on how much of a discount they are able to offer the customer. The AD also can't ship watches to customers, thereby assuring that the customer is always going to pay sales tax. In Dallas that's 8.25%. That's a big chunk of dough when you're looking at an $8,000 watch!

Given these realities, it's not surprising that the GM is thriving. AD pricing is not a function of the market but rather the manufacturers put their thumb on the scale and it's the ADs that pay the price.

If I were to open a watch store today in the old Tourneau space, I can't imagine that I'd want to be an AD. For me it would be to open a GM store.
 
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#51 ·
I've been told, but haven't checked it out myself, that Markham in Frisco has closed too. I only went by a couple of times, but it was nice to have a Zenith, Frederique and IWC dealer in the area.

Far North Dallas is hardly starving though, between Bachendorf's and Timeless, you've got a pretty wide selection. If you dare to go South into HP you have a pretty long list of high-end watch dealers.
 
#52 ·
I've been told, but haven't checked it out myself, that Markham in Frisco has closed too. I only went by a couple of times, but it was nice to have a Zenith, Frederique and IWC dealer in the area.

Far North Dallas is hardly starving though, between Bachendorf's and Timeless, you've got a pretty wide selection. If you dare to go South into HP you have a pretty long list of high-end watch dealers.
I haven't heard that about Markham. That would be disappointing. I think I saw one of their billboards yesterday, but that might just be a left-over.
 
#53 ·
Sorry -- coming to this thread late, so I apologize for missing stuff:

- The San Marcos Tourneau closed last year-- situated south of Austin to cater to both Austin/San Antonio but also largely to the Mexican nationals who come to the US for shopping vacations. The discounts on those went very deep as they got closer to close. That was a horrible shame, but I snagged a watch (from an AD, with warranty) for about 30% below the lowest gray market price. I wish I could have afforded more, but the deepest discounts were on models they weren't transferring to other locations. Apparently that location handled Grand Seiko, and they were gone within 2 days...

- I made a trip to the Houston Tourneau this weekend in the Houston Galleria and it was kind of disappointing compared to the San Marcos location. I've not been to other locations, but while the San Marcos location had a very wide range (Casio to IWC basically), the Houston store was much more focused on Cartier (no real interest) and the lowest end brands they carried were Longines and NOMOS. I'm looking in the ~$1-3K range, and Longines wasn't really what I was hoping to find-- looking more for brands that the other location carried like Alpina and Mido, maybe Oris if I got lucky, but was also open to looking at more interesting Seikos and the like. I got to see some cool B&R heritage stuff and NOMOS that I can't see here, but it was almost a wasted trip. (There is another similar store in the same mall that does carry Mido, Tissot, Hamilton, Rado, limited Tutima and some Seiko, but their prices are bad even for mall retail. This location may not want to carry too much in the way of overlapping brands.) I was hopeful that the Dallas location would have the wider selection ($100 to $10,000+ instead of $1000 to $10,000+ basically) but now it looks like I'm SoL...

Good luck for price drops. You guys closer to Dallas might get a few real bargains out of this. Sorry to hear about the store closing.
 
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