What's on Your Local Walmart Watch Shelves?

Shelf space for low end watches is dwindling, and the big box stores seem insistent on selling private label bottom-end tripe.

Ultra narrow focus here: the Walmart watch shelves.  Just a few years ago, there was a very decent selection available. You could pick up an iconic Casio cheapie, any of many Timex models, and more. Slowly the inventory and variety dwindled.

@UnholiestJedi claims that Armitron supplanted Casio near him. I distinctly remember one day where all the Timex models were suddenly not there, which is remarkable as they constantly had multiples of the same long-discontinued Easy Reader I'd bought a dozen years ago on hand, so it's obvious they were culled and not bought off the rack.

Honestly, I haven't looked in a few months. They did always carry cheap and cheery Armitron and Marathon by Timex models which, despite never buying any, I liked. The generic looking fake smartwatches came in at some point, because presumably that's the look the keedz wanted.

Anyway, what have you Walmart shoppers noted trendwise? Have entire brands disappeared? Is the display space shrinking?

Oh, I forgot, there used to be some real deal G-shocks and other ~$50-$300 watches behind glass in the (rarely manned) jewelry selection, but that seems to have been slashed too. 

But yeah, what have y'all seen? Big picture here guys, it's fine if you want to mention that Illuminator you just picked up there, but let's see the forest, not just the trees.

*and don't talk about the image used. I just had to throw in an image because apparently topics without them get buried quickly.

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You know...  I can't believe I haven't looked!  I typically go to Walmart for Cheddar & Sour Cream Lays chips, and recently discovered the Cheddar & Sour Cream AND Jalapeno Lays!

But, I have never perused their watch displays.

I'm going today!  Will be back with photos and chips!

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Sadly (happily?), I was wrong. My Walmart did have some today. 

A couple months ago, they did not. 

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Mr.Dee.Bater

You know...  I can't believe I haven't looked!  I typically go to Walmart for Cheddar & Sour Cream Lays chips, and recently discovered the Cheddar & Sour Cream AND Jalapeno Lays!

But, I have never perused their watch displays.

I'm going today!  Will be back with photos and chips!

Excellent, IME the rack is right off an aisle near jewelry land but YMMV. I saw one locale where the entire cheap watch selection was locked up behind plexiglas as if it were a NYC drug store.

Please note the positional prominence (you know, eye-level is premium placement, as is aisle end) of their store brand George stuff compared to other items.

IME Casio gets aisle end placement, Timex and George eye level, and you had to hunch over for those Armitron and Timex Marathon cheapos.

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Armitron, Timex, a few Casio, and George.  Why don't we have a hashtag for George?

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Aurelian

Armitron, Timex, a few Casio, and George.  Why don't we have a hashtag for George?

Appended, sorry #affordable!

I'm at a loss to explain the disappering of Timex at my local store. Did they just pull items that hadn't sold for X years, or did another location (or online sales) requisition them all? I'll have to see if they ever get restocked, as apparently happened with the Casios near @UnholiestJedi .

BTW, I bought a George quartz pocket watch for $8.88 a couple years back and despite it eating batteries too quickly, it's a solid bargain.

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Just today I was at the flagship Herald Square Macy's watch department. It's ever shrinking. Just from two years ago, the floor space has shrunk by like a third, that part of the floor looked pretty dead, and watches in cases are dwindling. They once had an extensive Hamilton collection, they were as close as New York had to a Hamilton boutique, but now there's a meager handful of watches. They still have TAG and Longines, but I can't imagine who would buy there. It all looks rather tired and sad. I don't think it's long for this world. 

I remember Teddy B did one of his watch shopping videos, and he went to Macy's and said, "I always have some luck here," went inside, and the watch department was completely gone. 

I guess it's been the story for a few years now. The bottom has dropped out from under the "affordable" watch market, and low end retail is dying (while meanwhile the luxury market is doing gangbusters).

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wilfried

Just today I was at the flagship Herald Square Macy's watch department. It's ever shrinking. Just from two years ago, the floor space has shrunk by like a third, that part of the floor looked pretty dead, and watches in cases are dwindling. They once had an extensive Hamilton collection, they were as close as New York had to a Hamilton boutique, but now there's a meager handful of watches. They still have TAG and Longines, but I can't imagine who would buy there. It all looks rather tired and sad. I don't think it's long for this world. 

I remember Teddy B did one of his watch shopping videos, and he went to Macy's and said, "I always have some luck here," went inside, and the watch department was completely gone. 

I guess it's been the story for a few years now. The bottom has dropped out from under the "affordable" watch market, and low end retail is dying (while meanwhile the luxury market is doing gangbusters).

Macy’s barely has anything of worth anymore. Stopped by my local Macy’s a few weeks ago and saw displays for MVMT, Michael Kors, Movado and GShock. There was a Seiko display as well but it Was much less of a selection than the aforementioned brands. As for WalMart, I’ve seen some classic Casios there and even a Duro! 

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Walwhat? 

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Konsalik

Walwhat? 

I meant to include an apology for those outside the US. I think that Walmart is US only? It's a giant cut-rate general store. 

Anyway, it's been years since I looked at the selection at a Macy's as mentioned by @wilfried and  @mskmagican. I remember being very dispirited by 100% markup basic Casio models, and laughable no-name fashion watches with insulting prices. I want to say that earlier this century one could indeed find a few display cases with Fossil, Sieko, Movado, Citizen, stuff maxing out in the mid triple digits. I'd suspect they suffered from people coming in to try them on, then buying online at much more competitive prices online. And now we can't try them on in person at all.

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This gem is at my local Walmart. 

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celinesimon

This gem is at my local Walmart. 

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A gem indeed. It could have fooled me. 😉

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The Walmart I frequent is located in a high median income city. It used to have (now online only) nice steel Armitrons up until a few months ago. Models like the Griffy, Grand and Ridgemont! Now, it just sells very basic digitals. But my silver lining gaurdian angel showed its sparkly self when the store had on clearance my Griffy for 10 bucks! I definitely won there.

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PoorMansRolex

I meant to include an apology for those outside the US. I think that Walmart is US only? It's a giant cut-rate general store. 

Anyway, it's been years since I looked at the selection at a Macy's as mentioned by @wilfried and  @mskmagican. I remember being very dispirited by 100% markup basic Casio models, and laughable no-name fashion watches with insulting prices. I want to say that earlier this century one could indeed find a few display cases with Fossil, Sieko, Movado, Citizen, stuff maxing out in the mid triple digits. I'd suspect they suffered from people coming in to try them on, then buying online at much more competitive prices online. And now we can't try them on in person at all.

It's so exotic for me, being a continental european (who's never been to the US or any English-speaking country, for that matter), to see big brands being sold at stores of that ilk. Couldn't even fetch a Casio at our german equivalents. I mean... Even seeing something like that Armitron above for 10 bucks on the shelves would be mind-boggling. 

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Nothing much on mine just basic Casios, Timex, Armitron, Gorges and Marathon Sketcher watches there this Bling Elgin watch started to see few Invictas as well.

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Well, in the UK we have ASDA which is Walmart-owned, but they do not sell watches. Regarding department stores, we have a Fenwick in town with one brand shittier than the next. We also have a Next, but a small one. Our Next has a pitiful 4 or 5 own brand watches, cheap, but still overpriced - their website is a lot more promising though, with lots of half-decent brands, even some Zeppelin. Next stores in bigger towns may have more promising watch choices.

This summer I visited mum in Bremen, Germany, and had a look at the local Karstadt, a large department store. They had a lot of watches. Yes, the usual fashion brands, but also Casio, Seiko, Citizen, Tissot, Junghans, Rado - I actually completely lost track perusing their watch collection. Within 2 minutes walk from that store was a watch shop that went a tad upmarket with a lot of watches in the 1000-2000 Euro bracket and that had e.g. a display with Union Glashütte; and within a 5 minute walk there is a Wempe, where things really go upmarket, close to another shop with tons of watches all below 20 Euros. Don't have that kind of choice in the UK highstreet.

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celinesimon

This gem is at my local Walmart. 

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Is $12.88 the new $8.88 due to inflation, or is the bracelet the extra cost?

@cageyjames Last I checked, Target had some cheesy private label, Goodfellow & Co., but that was probably a year or more ago. Also, Target and not Walmart?

@DariusII IIRC, about $34.99 (or 34.97 or $34.98 or however the secret code last digit of their pricing works) was the priciest things they'd put on the open shelves. Which was typically something akin to a Casio Royale.

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I have not had time to hit any of the big box stores today but will try whenever time permits.  I am super curious to see what might be there.

I wonder if there's any private label watch brands out there that do an actual decent watch.  It is not that pricey to get one from AliExpress, so I wonder why not take a shot at it.

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Oof, this is the sort of genocide I feared, where it sure looks like inventory is not being restocked, except possible for their private label poop.

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I haven't been to a Walmart in over 9 months, but two watch brands I've seen in the Qatari department stores are Sekonda & Festina. A lot better than the stuff on the shelves for @ChrisInEdmonton, but still pretty low end.

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Addendum: Walmart tends to have Timex Ironman models, often at discount.

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The last time I went into my local Wal-Mart I saw Casio, Timex, Armitron, and some others. Online, Wal-Mart has a marketplace like Amazon, and you can find all tiers of watches there, including luxury like Rolex.

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Well I haven't been to a Walmart in awhile but this post piqued my curiosity. So I went to the Walmart website and got to work. It didn't take long to find this little gem that checked all the boxes🤣

Luxury: Check Diamond Dial

Mechanical: Check

Self Winding: Check (I'm lazy, one less thing to do)

Waterproof: Check

Skeleton: Check  Halloween is upon us!

Affordable: Check 20.48

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Just came from Wal-Mart, as the wife was looking for some baking sheets. I was surprised to see they were carrying Armitron, Timex and Casio. You could easily buy a G-Shock there, or a Casio Duro, if you were so inclined. 

While not spectacular, it's a least a very fair offering. But then there was [g] / George, of course.

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hbein2022

Just came from Wal-Mart, as the wife was looking for some baking sheets. I was surprised to see they were carrying Armitron, Timex and Casio. You could easily buy a G-Shock there, or a Casio Duro, if you were so inclined. 

While not spectacular, it's a least a very fair offering. But then there was [g] / George, of course.

The G-Shocks and Duros are behind glass though, right? As opposed to the display boxes on shelves?

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PoorMansRolex

The G-Shocks and Duros are behind glass though, right? As opposed to the display boxes on shelves?

Right. And what have the dark side of the moon, the bottom of the Mariana Trench and the Wal-Mart jewelry counter have in common? They are devoid of human life.

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They are littered up with children's watches, mostly stuff with cartoon character on it. It was about 1/3 of the inventory.  There was also a surprising number of Skechers brand watches that I couldn't pretend to even look at. 

Casios still around, lots of big chunky digital not-G-Shocks but also two colors of F-91W, a Casio Royale and the metal bracelet (resin case) MRW200 for ~$32.

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There may be a holiday sale at the moment. Also, here's what it looks like for those not near one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc_FQx_jN1M

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ChadDipps

Nothing much on mine just basic Casios, Timex, Armitron, Gorges and Marathon Sketcher watches there this Bling Elgin watch started to see few Invictas as well.

Yes, we have photographic evidence of Elgin and Invicta

https://www.watchcrunch.com/Kingcharmz/posts/the-sell-invicta-at-wal-mart-now-38732

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They have some decent watches.