Selling
Selling a Watch
Most of the same caveats apply as under the ‘Buying a Watch‘ section, in particular the section on ‘Who to Trust.’
In terms of the process with a buyer…
- I don’t recommend holding a piece for a buyer beyond a limited period of time. If you are waiting for the prospect to complete another transaction, say selling another piece to afford the one you are discussing selling them, or if they are waiting for the end-of-year holiday work bonus, who knows how long that will truly take (or if it even happens). If you want to still hold for them, make it very clear that it will be for X number of days.
- Assume that the buyer may simply turn around and flip the watch. I wouldn’t place any weight on buyer comments as to how meaningful the watch is to them, how long they will have it, and so on. If you want to provide them some discount to the market rate, you can’t be surprised when they sell the watch the following day/week/month for whatever the reason (aka they “needed the money”, it “didn’t work with their collection” or “feel right on the wrist”).
- If you are inundated with questions that seem to never end about the watch, you may well make your life easier by moving on from that prospective buyer.
- Meet in a safe location, preferably somewhere such as bank or police department (some departments will have specific locations for people to meet when buying/selling goods). My recommendation is a bank – this way you are in what most consider a safe space, and you also have the ability to easily have the bank confirm that the cash or cashiers check isn’t counterfeit
- If you are accepting “cash” via online transfer, you should make sure you have the ability to transfer the money OUT of wherever source you received the transfer. If you get it via Venmo or PayPal, make sure you have transferred that money out into another bank account before finishing the transaction, thereby insuring that the buyer can’t cancel/pull back the transaction.
- Don’t believe any screenshot the buyer shows you that they have paid, always confirm independently that the money has cleared into your account.
- If watch selling isn’t your day job, you may wish to consider a firm “no returns” policy on the watch. If you want to make your life even easier that, though possibly at a higher cost, you can consider consigning your watches to dealers or to auction and allowing the professionals to handle the sales process.