Why do you trust WorldTempus to promote your online shop?
WorldTempus has a long history of promoting watch brands and disseminating the latest news about the watch industry. It was a pioneer reporting about the watch industry online. Over the years WorldTempus started deeper partnerships with the major Swiss watch brands, a next logical step is to also have deeper collaboration on e-commerce of luxury Swiss watches.
How does after-sales service work when you sell your watches online?
We give the customer the option of having their watch repaired at any authorized service center. In this respect it is no different from watches that are bought by tourists in one country and then serviced in another. This is why the Frédérique Constant Group offers a worldwide warranty. Within the group, Frederique Constant Geneva reimburses service centers aborad for any work carried out under warranty.
What are your expectations with e-commerce?
Currently, we sell approx. 1% online and see this rapidly growing to 5-10% over the next few years. Customers are getting more comfortable buying watches online and we see huge success on certain marketplace platforms.
What are your best-selling products online ?
Very comparable with what is sold at our 3000 points of sale worldwide. The Manufacture Collection and Horological Smartwatch Collections are strong, as well as the Heart Beat in the Automatic Collection.
Are there advantages for clients to shop online ?
The glowing hands are a slender, curved sword style with a stick seconds hand which once again features the reddish Alpina triangle, this time for a counterweight. Dial printing of the Alpina logo and signature is large, though given the 44mm situation and ample dial property, it is not overpowering. All in all, the dial is effective and appealing. One of the key elements of any pilot’s opinion is instantaneous legibility and the Startimer Automatic has that in spades given its clean and clear layout. Some may take offense at the repetition of Alpina’s triangle which looks no less than three times in the dial and hands however, quite honestly, that’s simply how Alpina rolls and you see their logo everywhere in their collection. The inclusion of an anti-reflective sapphire crystal ensures unfettered screening of this dial despite variable lighting conditions.Moving to the case, which can be 44mm by 10.7millimeters in dimension with a brushed finish and an extremely minimal utilitarian layout, we see again how Alpina are paying homage to important pilot’s watches of times long past. Absent are some intricacies in alternating finish or complicated circumstance shapes or bevels. The instrument watch feel is evident here and gives the watch a no nonsense aesthetic that plays to the pilot’s watch idea. A simple but neatly engraved case back adds to the utilitarian idea. A slight issue for me is using instance plating on two of those four variants of the Startimer Pilot Automatic. While I understand the drive to make a “gold” and also a “titanium” variant, I think the notion of case plating is a bit distasteful for many who know this plating can easily wear off with use, particularly on a tool watch.
There are two main advantages : Ease of purchase in their own environment on the one hand and the possibility of comparing and analysing watches without any hassle.
Buy an Alpina watch