Welcome to entry three of my blog – this is
where the world of watches becomes exciting!
Every year the world of watch and jewelry
come together in one place and create the largest watch and jewelry fair in the
world. This fair is called Basel World and I have just returned from a work
trip from Basel and Zurich in Switzerland where I represented Watch Magazine,
Cool Time Equity and The Horologist – all three businesses run under the
Barbagallo Group.
Watch Magazine is a magazine that my boss
has created which consists of a watch annual that is in alphabetical order for
all brands that have paid for editorial and advertorial space. This magazine is
printed annually in November and is the first and currently the only Australian
watch magazine. I run the social media aspect of this magazine so the brands
receive the exposure they have paid for and so I can increase the total
subscribers to the magazine.
The Horologist is a boutique store opening
up in Perth, which also consists of watches and luxury leather goods ranging
from $1200 - $150,000+. I will be working closely with this store as most of
the brands that will be stocked are the brands that we distribute into
Australia. My boss created this store when we found there is a market for this
type of goods in Perth and it is also a good place to have our stock displayed
instead of the safe.
In Baselworld my boss and I had back-to-back
meetings that all revolved around the three businesses that watches are
involved in. For example, we do not distribute Gucci into Australia and we also
do not stock Gucci products in our retail store; however, we would like Gucci
to advertise in the Watch annual magazine so we had a meetings scheduled with
the head of marketing for Australia. We had meetings with our existing brands
that we distribute such as Montegrappa and in these meetings we were showed the
new product launches for 2014/2015 and we were informed of new goals and budget
targets for Australia. In the distribution meetings we would place an order on
product for Australia and predict how many units we would require on each
product. We also had meetings with brands that no not currently have
distribution into Australia. In these meetings we discussed potential distribution
as well as potentially purchasing the product at a wholesale price purely just
to have the brand stocked at the Horologist.
The meetings were very intense, exhausting
and tiring because so much information needed to be taken in and each meeting
was for a different company that we take care of in Australia so you had to
have a fresh mind before each meeting, which was a challenge. It was exciting
to meet the head designers behind famous brands, meet head of marketing
departments for huge International brands such as Hublot, Tag and Swarovski. It
was interesting listening to the questions that the marketing team would ask my
boss in relation to the magazine – for them, it is all about exposure and brand
image and they have allocated budgets that need to be spent on the right
publications.
This was the most incredible experience I
have gained in my employment history to date. Seeing how the world does
business Internationally, discussing management of brands into Australia and
discussing pricing structures was the biggest learning curve. My boss has been
in this business for six years and he is very switched on with making the big
financial decisions; however, it is great that I was there to witness what
happens for future.
Personally, I preferred meetings with
brands that have a historic family background and brands that are not owned by
a huge organisation that is on the stock market such as the Swatch group who
own Tag. The meetings are not personalised, you liaise with staff members that
have no pull. When you meet the designer and you see that everyone that works
within the company have been there for 10 years the meetings become more
personal and that’s the way I like to build relationships in my job.
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