[tony20009]

I don't know what JLC, Patek's and other high end makers' customer profiles indicate, but my anecdotal observations tell me that the typical and target customer for those makes of watch are very globally mobile. Assuming they are, a number of factors may come into play, among them pricing and warranty considerations.

Sure, the makers are happy to sell the watch in any country, but ideally they'd sooner Americans buy their watches from American dealers. The easiest way to make that happen is to remove the price benefits (to the extent possible and where they exist) of buying overseas.

For example, I'm in the PRC, London, Tokyo and Paris quite a lot. I rarely buy luxury goods anywhere but in U.S. The exception is when I know the item simply isn't available for sale in U.S. or when it is on deep-discount clearance. Short of that, the money I save (taxes) is otherwise quite often given up when I declare it at Customs. Now "regular" stuff is a different story. There's plenty of that stuff that's cheaper to buy overseas, but I'm not going to make a trip there to get it and I'm not going to buy enough of it that it could be considered "stocking up" on something.

All the best.