[justdate]

How about this.. flippers and grey market dealers are actually doing a good thing and improve the market significantly! They help to correct the distorted market created by watch companies under pricing their goods.

I really don’t understand how a person can believe in the free market system and still feel entitled to get a product at significantly less than the market price.

The flippers are the real heroes here as they INCREASE supply in the free market to help ensure that the watch can be best allocated to the buyer willing to pay the most for it. If there were no flippers grey market pricing would be even more extreme due to the even smaller supply and even fewer deserving market participants (those willing to pay market price) would get the watches they want.

The most unhelpful market participants of all, other than PP/ADs underpricing their goods and creating the situation, are people who buy at MSRP but would not have bought at grey price. They are creating a huge inefficiency in the market and should sell their watch at the grey price to help correct the market, they are being offered more money for the watch than they value the watch at, it makes no sense (logically) to not sell.

Of course if they value the watch at more than the market price but could only afford the RRP, not the market price, then they would not sell the watch, but they should realise that it is PP who has given them free money and that’s the only reason they can afford the watch.

Why PP and other watch brands are doing this and leaving money on the table for their customers benefit is open to debate. In any case, flippers and greys are the only people doing anything to fix the market. All steps taken to reduce flipping just makes it worse, as they further reduce supply in the free market and increase the number of watches allocated to the wrong people.