Wheels within movements

MARKETING: When it comes to watches, "complications" can be a good thing.

Yashovardhan Saboo isn't above a bit of self-flagellation. The CEO of Ethos, a chain of stores that specialises in premium and luxury Swiss watches, is characteristically self-deprecating. "My biggest mistake is not having a store in Delhi," he confesses.

Launched in 2003, Ethos has seven outlets in Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune, and is fast covering up for its absence from the capital where it hopes to "definitely have three stores by next year".

It also hopes to have added Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad to its map of 40 stores in the next three years. "I'm betting heavily on malls," he says, "as their quality is improving, and buying patterns in the country are changing." For now, these would all be owned stores, and each will typically have a carpet area of 800-1,500 sq ft.

Saboo is in the capital escorting Philippe C Merk, CEO of luxury watch brand Maurice Lacroix, which has struck a marketing and distribution tie-up with Ethos. Having visited the flagship store in Chandigarh, he's remarkably upbeat about the market's hunger for high-end watches.

"Maurice Lacroix in India is at a starting point amidst a competitive environment," Merk admits, but is quite sure that the brand will more than hold its own, especially with its 2006 launch ""the Le Chronographe in its Masterpiece collection, which has its own movement: a rarity even in Swiss watches.

Maurice Lacroix is one of few remaining independent watch makers in Switzerland, and Merk says its USP could well be innovation.

Certainly, its moon face, retrogade and double retrogade watches have a strong following, particularly among men, and it is this that Saboo hopes consumers and Indian members of the Tourbillon Club will focus on.

Merk points out that typically, "complications" in a watch are a standard of distinctiveness and a guarantee against fakes, but these require several years to develop by way of planning and individual architecture.

Already, projects are in the works for watches that will be released as late as 2014. If these will target new trends, Merk says they will also be "an amalgam of new materials".

Saboo sees the Rs 600 crore premium and luxury watch market growing at 30-35 per cent annually in India, based on Swiss esports to the country as well as his own experience in time retail.

And within this segment, he's hoping to use the membership of the Tourbillon Club as well as the curiosity for high-end watches, to convert men (75 per cent of the luxury watch segment) into repeat buyers involving word of mouth promotions, co-promotional advertising and activities with individual watch brands, and through information sharing ("such as telling the difference between a counterfeit and a real watch").

And even though women would rather buy jewellery and men watches, the trend in ladies watches, he points out, is a growing size in dials, simplicity and elegance, yellow gold, diamonds and leather straps. Just so that you know.