How I was (not) buying Sea-Gull in Shanghai…

From China

City of fakes

Being in a busy traveling period I enjoy visiting various countries. The annual corporate conference was a good reason to go to Shanghai and – additionally to the business tasks – check out the local watches market.

China has the reputation as the dream destination for the fake watches collectors. All the big Swiss brand names are printed on dials of cheap watches offered for value of couple euros. The sales of the replicas is aggressively targeting oversees visitors. I was constantly offered watches by strangers on the streets of Shanghai. I even decided to hide the city map into the bag to make it less obvious I was a tourist wondering in the city. Nonetheless being a 180 cm tall European I could not vanish in the crowd of relatively short Asians.

Sea-Gull

I should admit I did my homework before flying to China. I have been searching for articles describing the watch market of China. I especially wanted to know if they produce any mechanical watches worth my time and attention. In fact I learnt there was the government owned company Sea-Gull producing fine watches since 1955. Moreover Sea-Gull was described as a popular timepiece on the wrists of the Chinese executives. I also saw nice online pictures of Sea-Gull chronographs. Their prices were supposed to be around 100 euros; some simple models were cheaper, and some – like skeleton chronograph – twice the base price. Sea-Gull also promoted, on its website, the tourbillion model.

From Sea-Gull

One hour of intensive search

When planning my week long visit to Shanghai I knew I might have just two short evenings for shopping. The first shopping hour was when the dinner was organized in the colorful district of shopping streets.  There were many descent jewelry shops however I did not notice any watches. Eventually I decided to talk to one of the street sellers attempting to sell me fake watches and leather products. I asked him about Sea-Gull, seeing he had no idea what I was talking about I wrote the name of the watch on the paper and also tried to draw the logo of Sea-Gull. That worked. He became my best friend and the Guide (let’s keep calling him Guide and I do not know his real name). Guide rushed with me to the nearest shopping lot where I could find Omega, Breitling, Rolex and many other Swiss replicas. Guide proudly presented the shelf full of watches and loudly said “Sea-Gull!. Maybe he thought “Sea-Gull” meant “watch” in my language? After my second attempt to explain that “Sea-Gull” is a popular (?) mechanical watch made in China, my Guide took me to another, much better looking shop. No Sea-Gull there either. But the shop owner gave a call to a person who sells “Sea-Gull”. After quarter an hour we had another seller joining the party. In the boxes and bags she brought on her motorbike there were good quality replicas, but still there was not what I was looking for. I thanked them for the good will and decided to end my attempts for that evening. The Guide found me again just at the door of the restaurant. He happily announced he knew the place with “Sea-Gull” and directed me to the shop hidden in the yard of the house in a dark and narrow street in the district. When entering the shop I was already sure there was another place of fake Omegas and Breitlings. I was right. That was enough for that day.

Authorized distributor

After gathering the experience of the streets shopping I tried to find an authorized distributor of Sea-Gull. I did it with some help of the Sea-Gull customer help line. My Chinese colleague dialed Sea-Gull number to learn where their watches should available in Shanghai. The hot line appeared to work for the institutional orders of the spare parts only. Nonetheless we got the direct number to the marketing department of Sea-Gull. There the officer talking to my colleague helped us in a friendly manner. However we did not receive any addresses, just information the watch might be available in the city’s department stores.

Equipped with the city map and the list of the addresses I started my Friday evening tour to the department stores. I visited four of them, including Nextage Department Store – the one claimed being the biggest in the city. Indeed I saw many watches, including models of Hamilton and Oris, and bright and shiny expositions of Swatch. I also visited decent departments of Omega, Cartier and many other Swiss watches. But… nowhere any traces regarding Sea-Gull.

From Sea-Gull

 Great watches, relaxed staff

The shops looked great; the watches were exposed as shining as I used to see them in Lucerne or Zurich. Talking about Swiss watches in Shanghai I would like to mention there was a significant difference between watch shops in Lucerne and Shanghai. In most of the Swiss based shops I could count on the shop assistants who were willing to help out. In Shanghai’s watches departments the staff was horrible (with some rare exceptions). Usually they spent time talking to each other and showing their disappointment when the chats were disturbed by me asking for assistance. In my opinion the worst of the worst was the arrogance of the ladies at watches’ floor of Nextage. On the bright site I should compliment the staff of Times Square at the same street.

Sea-Gull in USA, not in China

Getting back to the topic I need to admit there was absolutely no way to find Sea-Gull in any of the places I visited. I also went to Shanghai Clock and Watch Shop. I realized that the tourist guides describing that shop as a place of Swiss watches were absolutely correct. In Shanghai Clock and Watch Shop I met friendly and wiling to help assistants. However they pointed their finders to the department stores advising the Sea-Gull models should be exposed there.

In such case I ended the tour in my hotel room, connected my PC to the broadband and sent out email to Sea-Gull guys asking them what was going on with their products. Then I switched to the bookmarked websites (mainly in the USA) where I could have a look at the complete line of Sea-Gull watches.

Hopefully I would go to China again in the future and maybe by that time I could gather better information on the Sea-Gull’s distribution network.

At the moment I cannot confirm if the Sea-Gull timepieces look on the wrist as good as on the pictures. However I can firmly confirm that Sea-Gull is not a popular watch brand in Shanghai.

From China

BLF

24^th June 2007

Questions? Comments? Please, send them to: bernardREMOVE_THIS_CAPS_TEXT@fruga.net