Timex's 170th anniversary debacle
The limited edition $1 Waterbury was sure to get enthusiast attention — and resellers followed
Timex celebrated its 170th anniversary with a special issue of its Waterbury Classic. The limited edition watch took design notes from the pocket watches of early Timex history and, most importantly, was going to be sold for the same price: $1. What happened next was fairly predictable — call it the MoonSwatch effect — Timex’s website was overwhelmed with traffic, enthusiasts couldn’t get ahold of the watch, and resellers are now trying to flip the watch for hundreds and even thousands of dollars.
It does not matter how limited this edition is — in this case, 1,000 watches worldwide — nobody should ever pay more than $120 for a day-date Timex Waterbury. The 170th anniversary model has throwback cathedral hands and a Timex 170th logo on the dial and caseback, but aside from that, it’s identical to the basic Waterbury Classic: 40mm stainless steel case, quartz movement, lumed hands, and a mineral glass crystal. Timex sells the basic model for $119, but you get find it on near-perpetual sale on Amazon for $91 or $60 for a gray-dial version.
The watch dropped Saturday at 10 AM EST in the United States and those who got on Timex’s website and added the watch to their cart at exactly 10 were greeted with a message giving a wait time to check out. (For me, it started the wait time length started at 45 minutes.) Almost immediately, the message changed to say the watch had sold out. And then reversed again to say it was in stock, going back and forth for the next forty or so minutes. I ended up getting to the actual checkout twice, only to get the message that the watch sold out right before I hit the “complete purchase” button both times.
Anecdotally, everyone I know who tried to get the watch failed to do so. Social media is filled with annoyed posts and comments from watch fans who were hoping to get one but couldn’t. Ebay and other online markets are filled with resellers who picked up multiple Waterbury 170s trying to sell their stock for far more than they purchased it for and even than what it’s worth.
“Can't be faster than the bots,” as one Instagram user put it.
It’s the MoonSwatch phenomenon on a smaller scale: flippers overwhelmed a limited edition watch release and the average watch fan found themselves shut out. (At least the MoonSwatch started out exclusively in-store so bots couldn’t be used.)
The watch industry has attempted to confront the problem many times, and thus far a lottery system seems to be the best response. Timex’s decision to move forward with a traditional “first-come-first-serve” approach is baffling. Flippers win and their website just wasn’t built to handle that much simultaneous traffic.
Even now, the Timex website is confused about whether the watch is in stock or not.
They should make a second batch with an amended logo that says "SORRY" in red under anniversary edition and sell them for cost but make like 100,000 of them.