By far most watch reviews you will find today are provided by dedicated watch enthusiasts who purchase, then subsequently post images and reviews of the watches they purchase online. Usually these reviews are placed on forums or dedicated user submission websites. Then you have the professional reviews that you will find in watch magazines. More often than not, these reviews are of very expensive watches, and really don’t cover enough of what most people want to know. For example, watch reviews in WatchTime magazine cover a reviewed watch’s movement at very great lengths. Of course the movement of a watch is important to me, but I am more interested in whether it works well, than four paragraphs explaining how some new gear arrangement allows the chronograph function to work in a slightly more efficient manner. One of the only places online you can view any volume of watch review is Watch Report.

Watch makers should know that watches are not merely jewelry to most buyers. People don’t just buy watches because they like the looks, but there are other factors me take into consideration. I would be very interested to know how someone’s one week experience with a watch was before I purchased one. Positive accolades about a watch’s function and comfort are highly relevant and important to most purchasing decisions. We want to hear about them. Further, the importance of reviews becomes much more prevalent as most people have no access to watches they are interested other than seeing pictures of them in a magazine or on the internet. Watch makers without extremely powerful global distribution could easily maintain stellar sales by simply having some positive things said about their products. Most people cannot just go to a store and handle the watches they are interested, so reviews by non-marketers are very important.

It is easy to blame watch makers for this lack of watch review material, but understand where most of them are coming from. Other than a handful of mega watch makers, watch firms are usually smaller more old-fashioned businesses. They have no direct sales, and rely almost exclusively on dealers to move watch product. So perhaps it is the dealers and stores to blame? They have limited advertising, and often limited stock. Without direct instructions from the watch manufactures, they probably don’t have the time, or don’t see the point in handing out their expensive and limited inventory to people for review.

So if you want more watch reviews, you have to ask for them. Contact the manufacturer and dealers and simply say that you are on the fringe of purchasing a watch from them, but your decision really relies on reading about someone’s real world experience. Makers of almost any other product have for so long figured out that handing out a few of their products to the right people results in more sales and visibility. Watch makers have been doing this for a long time with celebrities, but they need to remember that to the dedicated watch buyer, these time pieces are not just fashion accessories, but tools and important style choices.

Thus, to the watch makers and dealers out there; there is a simple investment to be made in offering watch reviews to potential customers. Your sales conversion rates will increase, you will have more customers in crowded market, and you will certainly increase your credibility among consumers.

Lets hope watch makers take heed soon. If you want to write to a watch maker, the best tactic is to email their marketing or sales department, and CC the e-mail to one or more stores that carry the watch.