Grand Sieko US Exclusive this Wednesday

Sooooooo exciting!  I'm hoping that it's this watch, but in rose gold.  They could dye a lion pink as part of their marketing campaign.

Dude isnt msrp on this a kidney and a liver lol 

Im hoping for another 36mm release 

Yeah, okay, I should have clarified...  I would totally buy this U.S. exclusive rose gold SBGD211 "pink lion" if they took $245k off the price relative to the SBGD209.

But, in all seriousness, I'm kinda scared what U.S. exclusive they're going to announce.

1.  I already put down a deposit on the SBGW289 - my wife liked it, so I'm getting it for her
2.  I already put down a deposit on the SLGA015, and that's coming in August
3.  I can't lose my S&^% over yet another release and put down yet another deposit!!!

Grand Seiko release is joke, they have some exclusive or something birch every month. If you release this often it is neither exclusive nor collectible. If the idea is to get more people buying GS, they need to take a page out of Rolex play book ( not a Rolex fan), coz Rolex figure out customer acquisition by "seeming" to be exclusive. 

I would respectfully disagree.  

3 points:

•  The proof is in the pudding.  Just look at what their constant release strategy has meant in terms of market share gains

• Consumers want shorter product release cycles.  The only reason that manufacturers don't cater to this desire is because they're using old, antiquated manufacturing processes that don't allow for short release cycles.  Rolex, Omega, etc., only release watches once a year, because they can't do better than that, due to the inherent limitations in their manufacturing and product development processes.  Lean manufacturing enables Seiko and Grand Seiko to release new watches every week, and that's why Seiko / Grand Seiko is gobbling up market share
• Here's a software analogy:  Back in the bad old days of on-premise enterprise systems, companies like PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems and Oracle would use "waterfall" development methodology to jam a ton of new features into each new release.  Release cycles were typically once a year.  They would send out CDs to all their enterprise customers and say, "Hey, shut down your business for a week, while you install this gigantic new release."  Not ideal.  But, they were hampered by existing technologies and their antiquated "waterfall" development methodology.  Then, the Internet came along, and new guys like SalesForce appeared, and they used the advantages of the Internet to offer CRM software as a service (SaaS).  Once you had SaaS, you could shorten the development cycle, and introduce new features and functionality, and new releases as often as you liked.  Agile software development (which is just the name for lean manufacturing when applied to software) aims to complete "sprints" every 2 weeks or so.  No more of this dumb "waterfall" stuff.  And, well, take a look at the market share of Siebel Systems versus SalesForce now.  In the same way, Rolex, Omega, all the other brands really, all use antiquated "waterfall" product development and mass manufacturing techniques.  Seiko and Grand Seiko use "lean manufacturing," so they're able to give consumers what they want, when they want it - always

I know that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data," but because of GS's lean manufacturing capabilities, which then results in new releases every week, I've gone ahead and put down deposits on 3 different GS over the past several weeks.  If they released everything all at once, like Omega and Rolex, I could easily look at the entire portfolio of offerings, pick and choose between them at my leisure, and not feel any sense of urgency.  Meanwhile, GS very cleverly trickles out these releases, gets consumers to put down deposits, and then trickles out yet another release, gets a deposit, and then releases yet another, etc., etc.

That is how, per the chart above, you go from 25th in revenue in the U.S. in 2016 to 5th by 2020.  (They left Rolex out of the chart because otherwise it would have taken up the entire pie chart.)  

You make a brilliant point. I too have pre-orders on 3 GS that are unfulfilled, and had they released it once a year that would have been just 1 pre-order. But I think it will work only to a certain point before consumers fatigue sets in. How many more seasons, forests, lakes, blue sky are left in Japan for GS to make a new release every week ?

Don't get me wrong. I am a huge GS fan. 

Didn’t know a new release(s?) is coming!  Whoop 🙌   I’m excited!

Prediction: another watch I want, …but can’t afford 😢

😂😂😂😂

You're right!  They'll need to start naming watches after insects!  My wife is an entomologist, and apparently, there are something like ~900,000 different known insect species out there.

Introducing the Grand Seiko Gromphadorhina portentosa!

So, it's been announced!  Are you excited?  

Or is it more like this?

Thankful to be underwhelmed lol

It's lovely in person.