We suspect that Rolex is only delivering in very limited quantities to their dealers partly to fight the grey market. In recent years, Rolex has sent out letters to their dealers on how to prevent selling to (grey market) dealers and speculators. Drying out the grey market by not delivering your watches to dealers might be a solution, of course. But just like organizing a strike, you also hurt the innocent with these actions. Customers that walk into a Rolex boutique or dealer and get a ‘No’ if they inquire about a GMT-Master, Submariner or Daytona. Does that make the watch even more desirable than it already is? Perhaps that’s the case for some people, and they might go for a bi-color or more accessible model (e.g. Datejust) instead. But getting a no over and over again, what does that lead to?
The situation we now see occurring is that some of the most wanted models, such as the new Rolex GMT-Master Pepsi or even the bi-color “Root Beer 2.0” is now being offered by non-authorized dealers for way more than the official retail price.
it remains a bit of a mystery why certain Rolex watches aren’t available. After all, they’re a company that produces so many watches per year in-house. Could Rolex perhaps, with all the bi-colour models in stock, limit production for those and increase production for all stainless steel? We will never know for sure as Rolex remains silent. Also authorized dealers (we asked a few) keep coming back with the same answer, that the demand is simply too high for these watches. We just hope that Rolex can solve this issue and start the delivery of their stainless steel sports watches. We’d love to see it for the new models, like the GMT-Master II with Pepsi bezel, but also for longstanding models like the GMT-Master II, the blue & black version of that watch, the Submariners, etc.
We are a bit reluctant to believe that the demand is too high because this has been going on for quite a while now, so measurements could have been taken during that time. We also fear that this is Rolex’s answer to grey market, but at what cost? Rolex makes great products, incredibly reliable and attractive watches, we hope they are able to fix this issue of delivering them to the end consumers.