What a year! For those who’ve attended an event at our HQ recently, you’ve had some insight into the challenges we have faced this year with our supply chain.
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor, and I think I speak for the team when I say that we’re almost masters of the sea now; at points this year when waves were at their peak, we all felt a bit as though the Marloe boat was over-keeling.
With the rising sun casting its glow over a calming sea, we’re now straightening everything that’s foundered in the storm, and as thoughts are turning to the festive season and we approach our busiest point of the year, we find that there’s still a rain cloud on the horizon, reminding us that it’s never plain sailing: some of our new releases will arrive this side of Christmas, but the packaging won’t!
It’s a bit ridiculous really, but let me explain. At the very start of the year we decided it was time to redesign our packaging, for several reasons:
Our existing box experience is layered, deep and full of information - a story, you might say. Well, we felt that the current packaging wasn’t really embracing this story-led approach to our watch designs, and wanted to realign our boxes to adopt a more book-style form.
Despite our black boxes doing a great job of presenting and protecting our watches, there’s a lot of air around the watch, the box and the packaging inside the shipping box. Logistically this is hugely inefficient - the bigger the box, the more expensive it is to ship - so we wanted to make our boxes as streamlined as possible, while not compromising safety of contents or the unboxing experience itself.
When we designed the black box we felt that, no matter whether you bought a Coniston or a Haskell, you deserved the best unboxing experience possible. However, in the intervening years the message has come across loud and clear - there should be levels of packaging to reflect the relative cost of the watch. As such, we wanted to create a fantastic box for the bulk of our releases, but have scope to create more elaborate, more focused packaging for our exclusive, higher priced models.
Our current packaging costs are high due to the many components involved. A redesign would allow us to streamline much of this into a more engaging presentation, cut down on the plate spinning and aim for maximum efficiency - for example, QR codes and digital booklets mean we can offer more content on a phone-based platform, thus saving on printing costs (and of course the paper used).
The black boxes are big and likely to be stored out of sight - in a cupboard, under a bed, in the garage or loft. That’s a shame, given how much effort we put into these things, so by redesigning them to be smaller, more book-like, there’s far more chance of them being on display; placed on shelves or bookcases, like their own little library of time. And that alone is cool enough a concept for us to dive in headfirst.
So we set about doing exactly that - getting a new box designed, prototyped and ready for production. In the interim, our manufacturing supply chain imploded and our packaging plans were thrust into limbo - no sense in buying 5,000 boxes if we had no watches to put into them. A delicate balancing act began of ordering at the point where watches and boxes would arrive at around the same time.
Well, here we are - the watches will arrive but the boxes won’t, well, not until January anyway! Our supply chain combusted and for a time we were resigned to 2024 being watch-less, such was the cataclysmic implosion we endured. However, with the transition to a new supplier, and subsequent significant improvement in the speed at which things are resolved, sampled and shipped, we found that suddenly everything needed to be kicked into gear with haste.
Then another issue raised its head that meant the turnaround time we had planned for did not quite match up to reality. Typically, the boxes are transported to the UK from the supplier by air. Unfortunately, shipping costs are astronomical at this time of year, when we’ve never before had to ship anything of this magnitude. The ramping up of costs in response to competition for airfreight space makes it prohibitively expensive.
So we’ve decided to have a smaller consignment shipped to us by air, allowing us to launch a special watch in December, and the rest will follow by sea in a few weeks’ time. As a result, we won’t be able to ship anything else out in the new packaging until it arrives in the New Year. Yes, quite.
So, we’ve come up with a solution…
We’ll soon be opening pre-orders for watches that will be delivered in the New Year - these include the Coniston Auto CN7 & Trackday, Sceptre Commander and Morar 310. This means that those who are keen to acquire a specific serial number or secure a watch that is limited in batch number (the Morar is limited to 100 pieces per colour!) can get their order in now, safe in the knowledge that it’ll be with them just as the January blues are kicking in.
Also, if you were thinking of gifting one of these watches at Christmas then we're able to send a placeholder for the big day, in the form of our very lovely letter-pressed card.
If that sounds good, please do ensure you're signed up to be notified when pre-order opens (links for each model below). We’ll open up general sale once we have all the pre-orders fulfilled and shipped.
It’s been one of the most excruciatingly difficult years of operation since we began in 2015, and I felt like Robert Redford more times than I care to mention. But the work we’ve done on these new ranges, the effort the team has put into making sure everything is as good as it can be given the circumstances, and the sheer magnitude of incredibly positive messages and encouragement coming in from you lovely folk, has given us just enough buoyancy in our jackets to stay afloat, kicking our legs, and now, finally, we’ve made it back on board; with a tidy up and some repairs, we are on course for a cracking 2025 and beyond.
SIGN UP TO BE NOTIFIED OF PRE-ORDER:
Coniston Auto Trackday
Coniston Auto CN7
Sceptre Commander
Morar 310
