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Grand Seiko launches pop-up experience in New York City

Brice Le Troadec, Grand Seiko Corporation of America President, joins Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade with Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi to discuss the experiential pop-up store, the state of luxury retail and more.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: All right, in the midst of the summer heat and ongoing coronavirus pandemic, watchmaker Grand Seiko launched a pop-up store in Soho, New York, alongside Watches of Switzerland. Here discuss that more is Grand Seiko Corporation of America President Brice Le Troadec. Brice, good to-- good to see you this morning.

Very much a counter-intuitive move to be opening up an experience in Soho. A lot of retailers have pulled out of that area given the pandemic. Why did you make that move?

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BRICE LE TROADEC: Hi, Alexis. Hi, Brian. It's a pleasure to be here today. No, I think we have been experiencing for-- experiencing for the past four months during the pandemic, the shutdown, a lot of digital activations. And I think the consumer and the audience is ready for going back to a brick and mortar or retail experience.

So we decided to collaborate was one of our key partners, Watches of Switzerland, to open this experience in Soho. I think Soho's probably the safest place to shop today in New York City, in Manhattan. So we have there an immersive experience about the brand, very educational, very emotional. And we have been receiving a lot of traffic, a lot of attention so far.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I want to talk about your overall offerings, Brice, because you look at something like an Apple Watch, a smartwatch, is there internal talk there within your company that maybe it's time for a smartwatch?

BRICE LE TROADEC: Thank you for asking. Definitely not for Grand Seiko. Grand Seiko is the pinnacle of the Seiko Corporation. It's focusing pretty much on mechanical watches. And we have a unique technology that we call spring drive that is a hybrid between spring-- mechanical and quartz moment.

But we don't look forward to developing any high-tech watches. It's mostly based on traditional watchmaking.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, your watches, they could-- they could go up, worth more or sell more than $5,000. But part of that experience is getting a higher-income customer into the stores to try it on. That's part of the whole fun of buying a watch. How have you been able to do that?

BRICE LE TROADEC: So have been-- we have been supported very heavily by an amazing network of key retailers that has been very much raising the awareness of Grand Seiko over the past three years mainly. But we also have an amazing core collectors on the ground that has been loving and passionate about Grand Seiko that is very much doing the job of curating the brand from within.

We have been very active during the pandemic especially advertising or promoting the brand digitally. We have done actually a lot of promotions and launch-- product launch using virtual technology, augmented reality, putting the watch on the wrist of the consumer virtually. And so that has been actually very helpful for about three months.

But again, so we-- we have a great momentum with the brand. The brand has taken a lot of market shares over the past three years. From being one of the last brands in the ranking, we became the top four brand at the price of $5,000 to $10,000 in the gents category.

BRIAN SOZZI: Have you seen an uptick in business because of the stock market's advance?

BRICE LE TROADEC: We have been very much-- we are selling a dream. We are selling a lifetime product that we are setting in motion. Our consumers are very much across the board younger, a younger generation of clients, very much meaning your tech-oriented. But also, we have clients in the upper segment that are buying the higher price point brands that collect the Grand Seiko as well.

We don't really see an impact from the trade right now. We know the brand is fairly-- fairly well equipped to go through the period we are in today.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: There is a very healthy and robust market out there that makes cheap knockoffs, if you will, of more expensive items. I'm sure Seiko has been a victim of this. What do you do about getting a handle on that kind of merchandise out there in the marketplace, Brice?

BRICE LE TROADEC: Talking about the product allocation in the US market or-- sorry.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: That we sometimes see knockoffs of more pricier items, like a Seiko watch, for instance. How do you sort of police that?

BRICE LE TROADEC: We are a brand. And Grand Seiko especially-- we are talking about the Grand Seiko-- is very much a brand that has been respected in the trade by the consumers. We are very active also with-- and very respected in the preowned and trading.

And so the brand is holding its value very well today. We talk about Grand Seiko being one of the most collectible brands in the watch industry today.

BRIAN SOZZI: Certainly within the watch industry here, you guy-- the industry is always thinking ahead-- 12 months, 24 months you name it. What's the next biggest trend in watch we should all keep a-- keep an eye out for?

BRICE LE TROADEC: So we are looking towards, working towards making the brand the most accessible possible to own, again. So we are very much working on creating experiences with our key retailers, and also creating more visibility on digital. And we are looking probably towards opening on e-commerce and making the product accessible to audience this way.

This is a very traditional brand, Grand Seiko. But we are very dynamic in the way we communicate it, very much.

BRIAN SOZZI: All right, we'll leave it there. All right, we'll leave it there. Grand Seiko Corporation of America President Brice Le Troadec, good to see you. Have a good rest of the week.

BRICE LE TROADEC: Thank you for having me.