【INDUSTRY IN-DEPTH REVIEW】The CPO Gold Rush, Part Two: When Watch Brands Enter the Secondary Market
By Alfred LungOpinion
For years, my father would remind me that the secondary market is not the enemy of the primary market. It is its foundation.
The observation felt counterintuitive at first. Why would a watch brand care about transactions it does not participate in? Yet the more one studies the luxury watch industry, the more obvious the relationship becomes. Buyers are often willing to spend substantial sums on a watch not only because they admire the product itself, but because they know there is an active market supporting it long after the original sale.
A healthy secondary market creates confidence. It reassures collectors that they can trade, upgrade, inherit or occasionally liquidate a timepiece if circumstances change. In many ways, it serves as the infrastructure supporting the primary market.
Today, it seems many watch brands have reached the same conclusion.
The rise of Certified Pre-Owned programmes suggests that manufacturers no longer view the secondary market as an external ecosystem operating at arm's length. Instead, they increasingly see it as an extension of the ownership journey.
The question is no longer whether brands should participate in the secondary market. The more interesting question is how far that participation should go.
More Than Authentication
On paper, Certified Pre-Owned is a relatively simple proposition.
A watch is authenticated, serviced and resold with a manufacturer-backed warranty. Buyers gain reassurance. Brands maintain oversight of quality and provenance. The ownership experience becomes more seamless.
There is genuine value in that model.
The modern watch market can be intimidating, particularly for newer collectors. Factory certification offers a level of confidence that few independent dealers can match.
Trade-ins represent another compelling advantage. Rather than navigating a private sale, clients can remain within the brand ecosystem, exchanging one watch for another with greater ease.
Yet the growing interest in CPO also reflects a broader reality: the secondary market has become too important for brands to ignore.
The Rolex Example
Rolex offers perhaps the clearest illustration of this shift.
Its Certified Pre-Owned programme focuses largely on discontinued references sourced and retailed by authorised dealers. Rolex provides authentication, servicing and warranty coverage, while dealers acquire inventory and determine pricing independently.
For collectors seeking discontinued Daytonas, Submariners or GMT-Master IIs, the proposition is compelling.
What makes the programme particularly interesting, however, is the pricing dynamic.
Unlike new Rolex watches, which generally maintain consistent retail pricing, CPO prices can vary considerably between authorised dealers. Two retailers may offer virtually identical certified watches yet attach noticeably different price tags.
Certification creates consistency of quality, but not necessarily consistency of value.
For consumers, trust has become standardised. Pricing remains subject to market forces.
The Audemars Piguet Question
Audemars Piguet occupies a particularly intriguing position.
The brand first announced plans for a comprehensive Certified Pre-Owned initiative several years ago, positioning it as an important part of its long-term strategy. Yet a full-scale rollout has taken longer than many industry observers anticipated.
There may be several reasons for this.
Since those early announcements, Audemars Piguet has undergone a leadership transition, with François-Henry Bennahmias stepping down and Ilaria Resta assuming the role of chief executive. Major strategic initiatives often evolve as new leadership reassesses priorities.
At the same time, the broader watch market has entered a more measured phase. The extraordinary highs of the post-pandemic boom have cooled, and prices for many Royal Oak references have moderated from their peaks, even if they remain robust by historical standards.
Whether the gradual pace of AP's programme reflects leadership transition, changing market conditions, strategic caution or a combination of all three is ultimately known only to the brand itself.
What remains clear is that few companies are better positioned to influence how Certified Pre-Owned evolves. The Royal Oak continues to command remarkable attention in both primary and secondary markets.
The question is not whether AP will participate, but what form that participation will eventually take.
MB&F and Richard Mille: Where Exclusivity Meets the Secondary Market
At the other end of the spectrum sit the independents, and here the logic changes again.
MB&F and Richard Mille have both formalised their participation in the pre-owned market. For brands whose values remain resilient and whose clients may spend six or seven figures on a single timepiece, provenance matters as much as the watch itself. Official certification protects authenticity, but it also protects something less tangible: the exclusivity of the brand experience.
There is a parallel reality, of course. Walk into any dealer's showroom in Hong Kong and you will find the same references sitting in trays and travelling cases, changing hands entirely outside the brand's field of view. That is the parallel and secondary market, and it has been operating, quite successfully, for far longer than any CPO programme.
The Richemont Contrast
The Richemont approach offers an instructive contrast.
Through Watchfinder, the group has built an integrated resale ecosystem supporting brands such as Cartier and Vacheron Constantin.
Here, CPO often feels less like a mechanism for capturing scarcity premiums and more like an extension of customer service.
Many Cartier and Vacheron Constantin models continue to trade below retail value on the secondary market. As a result, the emphasis falls more heavily on convenience, trade-ins, authenticity and long-term engagement.
In many respects, this feels closer to the original vision of CPO: protecting buyers and enhancing ownership.
Supporting the Market or Shaping It?
This brings us to the broader philosophical question.
Historically, watchmakers created value through craftsmanship, innovation and design. The market then determined that value independently.
Today, those boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred.
As manufacturers expand their role in resale, they naturally gain greater influence over how watches are presented, certified and valued. Some see this as a positive evolution. After all, no one understands a watch better than the company that created it.
Others wonder whether excessive involvement risks changing the role of the watchmaker itself.
Perhaps the challenge is simply finding the right balance.
Looking Ahead
Certified Pre-Owned is undoubtedly here to stay.
For collectors, that is largely positive. Greater transparency, stronger authentication standards and improved ownership support all contribute to a healthier market.
Perhaps the most interesting development is not that watch brands have entered the secondary market, but that they have finally acknowledged its importance.
For generations, collectors understood what many brands preferred not to say aloud: the secondary market helps sustain the primary market.
Certified Pre-Owned is, in many respects, an admission of that reality.
The challenge now is finding the right balance. Supporting the ecosystem is one thing. Dominating it is another.
The brands that succeed will be those that use CPO to strengthen trust, preserve heritage and enhance ownership, while remembering that their primary role remains unchanged: to create watches so compelling that their value endures naturally, long after they leave the boutique.
Cover photograph by Alpha Watch & Jewellery 名錶世家鐘錶珠寶.
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