[tony20009]

Originally Posted by RedlinePSI

With good reason. I don't imagine these types of goods are listed at such great deals in those areas. From my experience you are definitely spot on with your observations. I've shopped for specific watches in Seoul, and while I think the sticker price was the same, the major factor was that they don't negotiate at all.

Now it's possible that I am getting a false generalization of the area because from what i was told we were in a pretty high end mall. But even if that is so, I came back to the states and got something like 18% off MSRP for that same model at a pretty "high end strip mall" in my area. The guy in Seoul just didn't even wanna talk. Meanwhile, I don't know anybody around here that pays full MSRP.

Haggling is quite a personal thing insofar as one's success is almost always driven in part by how the seller perceives one as much as by basic supply and demand. One's actual haggling skills relative to those of the seller also play a big role.

One thing I've noticed almost universally is that manufacturers' brand boutiques are "hit or miss" in terms of getting price concessions. Want to buy a highly demanded item like most Rolex Oyster models or an Omega Sea-/Speedmaster? The odds of getting a discount are low. Want a Rolex Cellini or Omega Constellation? One has a fair chance of getting a reasonable discount.

Department stores are, in my experience, the worst places to try haggling, mostly because of how they are managed. Department stores tend to be centrally managed and all discretionary decisions of department personnel are closely monitored because "internal shrinkage" is the biggest cause of lost revenue/profits. Also, the store's management people who can authorize the discount are rarely present on the sales floor.

A department manager will have a small bit of discretion to offer a price concession, but when they do so, it shows up on an "exception report" that the buyers and/or division manager sees. As a result, department managers tend to limit their one-off discounting to slightly damaged goods and other items for which exceptional circumstances (one's not related to the customer) exist, and that in turn means the frequency of their doing so is very low, which is what buyers and division managers expect. When a department manager's one-off discounts go above an expected figure, the store's investigative procedures kick in to determine whether there is something "shady" afoot.

The other big factor I've come across is whether one is perceived as a tourist or a local. (Local meaning "not a tourist" rather than whether one is a native or citizen.) The world over, tourists generally go places intending to spend money and enjoy that they are doing so. Sellers are more than happy to facilitate their doing so for they know that "big spending," so to speak, gives tourists an emotional high of sorts.

Several things help mask that one is a tourist -- speaking the language, being accompanied by friends/acquaintances who are clearly not tourists, dressing like the locals, and not being in a touristy area are among the better techniques. Notwithstanding supply and demand factors, the more of them one has on one's side, the better the odds of getting discounts in places that generally refrain from discounting to tourists.

Originally Posted by RedlinePSI

Regarding that import fee...err well i'll just say, on this same trip, my wife got a bag in Korea and we told them about it coming back in. They literally looked at us like, why did you just tell us that!? They basically ended up chatting us up, playing with their toys a bit and let us go without a charge. I'm not going to spell it out here, but you get the point.

Although Customs will seize stuff from individuals, my understanding is that they are mostly looking for (1) contraband that can be harmful to the country...stuff like plants, animals, weapons, drugs, etc., or (2) individuals who are trying to bring in large quantities of goods as personal items rather than as goods for resale. Buy a watch in Switzerland for which it's entirely plausible that you had it when you left your home country and you'll have no issue with Customs; they don't have time to quibble over that sort of thing and they don't want to.

Bob and Mary on vacation with the kids and who bought a nice watch or two for themselves aren't who Customs is generally after. In such a circumstance, just wearing their new watches and discarding the packaging will generally suffice. By the same token, if Bob and Mary bought half a dozen watches while there, and/or who have their 10 and 14 year old kids wearing multi-thousand dollar watches and claiming they belong to the kids, would raise some eyebrows. Buying that many "uncommon for the situation" watches, Bob and Mary should declare the watches rather than take the risk. Customs folks may not be savvy to the ways of the uber-wealthy, but they know quite well the ways of "Bob and Mary Normal," so one can't push "plausible deniability" too far before Customs agents opt to exercise their authority and ability to push back. LOL

Red:
FWIW, and this has nothing to do with traveling, unless one hopes to resell the thing, the packaging is irrelevant in its own right. The papers are all one needs to hang on to. As for getting warranty covered repairs (something that's highly unlikely to be needed), if the warranty on the watch is not valid in one's home country, or one is not willing to take the watch to a country where it is valid, even the warranty card is of negligible value. That's all the more so if one has bought the watch much as one buys other fashion items rather than to include it in a collection one is building in a curatorial way.

It's nice sometimes to have the packaging, but it's far from necessary. Yes, I know these days watch companies, especially high end ones, provide very nice boxes and whatnot with the watches. I still toss them unless I can use them for something else, say as a box for a gift I'm giving to someone and for which I have no box to put it in. Otherwise, I have no use for all that fancy packaging, and some of it is ridiculously large relative to the watch and other stuff inside.

What follows is just a cathartic rant issuing from one of my pet peeves about high end watch companies' packaging...




I mean really. What is the point of all that packaging, much less keeping it? This is just as bad. The watch is dwarfed by the box it comes in. Hell, no; I'm not keeping that thing.




There was a time when I held on to the boxes, and in that time period I amassed a small closet full of watch boxes. That's when I was like, "Oh, hell no! I'm not having giving up household space for empty boxes." I safely store the documentation for the watches elsewhere, so what was the point of keeping the rest. So I went through the boxes, took anything useful -- loupes, extra straps, pillows, tools, etc. -- and tossed nearly all the boxes.

What boxes did I keep? The one that's aren't much larger than they need to be to hold the watch. LOL

This is about as elaborate/large a box as I'll keep.



The one's I'll keep with no reservation look like this (the shape, not the branding):



The one below isn't too bad, but it's still too damn big. That's the box type I see most of the time from high end makers these days. I've long since tossed or given away all the boxes like the one below. I've suffered no negative consequences for having discarded any non-essential elements.



All the best.