Someone is not a fan of the Swatch collaborations

As an Omega Acolyte (fanboy), these collabs don't bother me. If Omega can sell them to people who want them - Great! If any of them are not for me - Great. Omega is a business who is trying to turn over product and make a profit - not all of it needs to appeal ro me, or to us as collectors. The market is wider than us - vastly.

Good points. I agree with you. At the same time I can and do enjoy satire in the form of comics.

Yeah, I get that it's satire and can appreciate that. 😬😁

Did not mean to imply you did not get it, was more saying I do not mind the collaborations but the author of the cartoon has some strong feelings and expressed them in a fun and interesting way. ⌚🚀🤿🐾

It seems to me like a meme aimed at snobbish people or flippers. We must understand them as toys paying tribute to great legends.

Buy a 3D printer and save yourself a shit load of $$$

You can get a 3D printer, the correct colours, a movement, a strap and develop and print an accurate working model for under £250?

You my friend, are a genius.

I, am sceptical.

So dramatic. I can't understand why people get so in their feelings about this stuff! 😂

My biggest issue is the reported quality issue with the Swatches. I do not expect them to be master pieces but at the price I also not expect the, to fall apart in a few months. G-Shocks in the same price range are know for how well they hold up for example.

When you say reported quality issues, what do you mean? What report/from whom? What's the actual failure rate? Anecdotes are, well... anecdotes. By that I mean that a few people complaining loudly about something doesn't mean the issue is widespread, so you'd need some numbers on warranty claims to know if there's an unacceptable rate of failure.

As to the price, we can't forget that these are licensed products. Licensing is expensive and the more a brand charges Swatch for the rights, the higher the RP per unit will be. A licensed product will always cost more than an unlicensed one. The MoonSwatch pricing isn't out of line with other licensed Swatch products. And most of those are three-handers, not chronos. Keep in mind that Casio doesn't have to pay anyone else for the rights to make a G Shock.

Materials are another factor. Resin is dirt cheap compared to bioceramic. G Shocks made from more advanced materials like carbon, or more costly materials like steel or titanium, are not the cheapest models.

Then there's labor market costs. Swiss movements and labor are more expensive. Etc, etc.

I don't own a MoonSwatch, I have no plans to buy one, no strong opinion about them, and no skin in the game. I do however, think it's silly when people get up in arms without understanding business, materials manufacturing, labor, marketing costs, and assembly elements at play with how products come to market.

A considered, fact-based discussion is great! A personal opinion on whether one does or doesn't like a watch is valid. Knee jerk reactions to inaccurate speculations is just people being in their feelings.

I have no personal experience, outside of seeing one at a meetup, as there are no swatch stores I have found around me, My concerns are bases off reviews I have seen for items such as the dye discoloring peoples skin and reports of the watch cases falling apart and being fragile. Like I said I like the idea and I get the branding and other costs keeping bringing the cost up a bit but Swatch does own the brands that are being collaborated with thus they ultimately set there own prices on the collaboration and these collaborations are really marketing tools to bring greater awareness to the brands.

That being said I do believe there is something to be said about looking at reviews to get an idea of a product. I wish I knew of a way to see the scale of the issue but as far as I know there is no poll of owners to give averages such as Consumer Reports used to do for cars and appliances etc.

I have a thought about this. You mention the watch cases falling apart etc, and I have a theory on this.

Many people out there bought one of these watches off eBay and the like because they couldn't get to a Swatch store to buy their own. There has been a HUGE number of Chinese fakes sold to unsuspecting victims, and a good portion of these unlucky buyers could be the ones having issues and shouting about them online, completely unaware that they have a cheap fake and not a genuine item.

And that is why I think Swatch needed to either protect their IP by suing the Chinese copy factories, or by releasing them online to offer a guarantee of authentication. Allowing fake watches to flood the market has harmed their reputation due to the issues being reported inaccurately against their brand.

I have no problem with them. I accept them for what they are. I own both a Speedmaster and a Fifty Fathoms. Honestly ill most likely get a moonswatch and the scuba 50. I like the colors. Much like I stopped trying to understand G Shocks long ago. Wear what you want.

This is a possibility. I am pretty sure I found reports from reviewers that should be able to tell a fake from the real thing as a number of reviewers and sites I like to check out are tied to retailers.

I can see that.

The Marketing of the plastic tribute watches did as intended in that those luxury brand names came to the forefront because otherwise only the rich knew of them. Now the masses can pretend luxury with them. "look it says Omega right here...."

Are they really afraid that someone would trivialize a $10,000 Peanuts watch?

There are fake MoonSwatches out there that are essentially indistinguishable from the originals, so I wouldn't make an assumption that someone would know for sure unless they got it direct from Swatch. Even a relatively small number of fakes could present a disproportionate number of complaints if they fail at a high rate.

Swatch sold over 1 million MoonSwatches in 2022 alone. Even 1000 verified failures of the genuine product would be statistically insignificant and well below acceptable product failure rates. It would be a triumph, to be fair.

To put it in perspective, some of us may recall the widespread failures of the Xbox 360. The red ring of death, consoles catching on fire, that kind of thing. At the time, there was about a 30% failure rate for those consoles. Terrible. Yet Xbox is still going strong.

By contrast the failure rate of Sony's PlayStation 3 was around 3% which is excellent. Out of 87 million PS3s sold, a 3% rate of failure would amount to 2,610,000 faulty PS3s. That's a lot of broken consoles. But, even if every single one of those people took to social media, loudly lamenting their fate and declaring the PS3 garbage, Sony's failure rate for the console would still be only 3%. See what I mean?If you based an evaluation of the PS3s quality on how many people complained about it, without knowing all the numbers, you would come to the wrong conclusion.

So however many reviews or whatnot you've seen with a warranty issue, it's still a drop in the ocean of sales, and it's likely a very acceptable number. And let's remember that unhappy customers are loud and happy ones don't complain. Every product has some rate of failure. Judging the whole product line on a handful of anecdotes is a textbook thinking error.

Again, none of this is to defend or condemn the MoonSwatch. I don't care either way. What does rub my fur backwards is faulty logic presented as truth. People get all worked up for no reason and try to stir the pot before they stop and think. I think we could all do with learning to be a little less reactive and a little more critically minded.

Exactly, these collaborations are marketing tools. Thus I would expect a level of quality and reliability. If your marketing piece does not have much reliability would you not worry about how that impacts the brand you are trying to bring to the forefront?

I made this post to get a discussion going, I thought the cartoon was funny but over reactive. I thought the post would get a few laughs and hopefully get a conversation going. The truth is I have toyed with the idea of getting a moonswatch but the truth is I do not have an easy way to check it out in person and I do have concerns about the cost to durability ratio. As for the fifty fathoms collaboration I do not want a mechanical watch that cannot be serviced.

Agreed on both points. There's no excuse for a throwaway mechanical movement. There's enough derelict plastic in the world already.

I also think not making the MoonSwatch available online was a misstep and a transparent offering to the hype machine. Siliness.

Thank you for the stimulating conversation. This is what I hope to see when posting.

Someone is a purist. Lol. The collaborations have not been for me but it gets people into watches. Smartwatches are threatening the industry as much as the introduction of quartz. Maybe one day, Swatch will come out with a perfect collaboration and knock it out of the park. Hasn't happened yet, but that's only my opinion.

I think they have a good concept just need to step in up a bit if you ask me.

The middle door should have said 50 fathoms for consistency's sake

Breguet is next for sure

Please 🙏 don’t tell me Swatch is going Woke!🫠

Whoever made this graphic has a big misunderstanding of TSG, namely that Swatch ≠ Swatch Group. Blancpain needed this and i saw it coming when the Moonswatch was released. This is the equivalent of someone lamenting their daughter dating a fun guy but not realizing that this is what she’s been craving for a good while. The pairing is mutual, not of any trickery.

I’m not even sure what this is supposed to even mean. 🤦‍♂️