Luxury Watch Shortage Drives Growth Of $20 Billion Secondhand Market As Start-Ups Rush To Cash In

A rush of companies are vying to become the eBay of high-end horology — including the storied online marketplace itself. Demand for high-end watches exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic. But the Big Four watch brands — Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet and Richard Mille — are holding firm on the limited production runs that make their timepieces so rare. The result is an online boom in the business of buying, selling and flipping pre-owned and vintage watches and a growing number of start-ups competing to become the dominant digital marketplace. McKinsey estimates that pre-owned watch sales hit $18 billion in 2019, and could top $30 billion by 2025. Pre-owned watch sales will be about half the size of the market for new, retail watches by 2025, up from about a third today, according to the consulting firm. Read more at CNBC.