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Cloaca
1906
Oct 4, 2017
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Red Line was a brand of SWI, which was acquired by Clearlake, which transferred ownership to an unnamed company in 2013. On January 23 of this year, SWI shut down and laid off 129 employees.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/consumer/fl-bz-watch-seller-layoffs-20170131-story.html
The Florida state corporations search page at search.sunbiz.org has an Swiss Watch International that ends in 2012, the Clearlake date I think, and another that starts at that time, undergoes a name change (Swordfish Merger Sub, Inc.?), then gets shut down for not filing a 2017 annual report.
Ultimately, they were probably another Amazon.com victim, since their main business seemed to be selling their own and others' products online. Places like Jomashop have managed to live on because buyers trust them not to sell pirated knock-offs, unlike Amazon.
If you liked Red Line, the trademark and IP can probably be had for a few hundred dollars from the creditors. You could then hook up with a Chinese watch maker on Alibaba and start your own watch line. :-) The founder of Abington, a maker of pilot watches for women, got started via Alibaba for manufacturing and her network of female pilot friends for customers.
Oct 4, 2017
RandyBrown
1486
Oct 4, 2017
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CloacaThanks for the additional info on SWI - Wow, what a sorted past. I’m a Jomashop custoner with a few purchases under my belt. I like Jomashop, their stands, and prices. I was a bit worried when World Of Watches went dark for a few months, and it got me wondering about the state of 3rd party resellers.
Oct 4, 2017
Danbo_de_Piano
965
Oct 4, 2017
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CloacaI suspect they may have gotten up and going again in some fashion World of watches was one of their several sites and a main sales and distribution channel of theirs and around that time they seemed to go down but past few weeks they started emailing me again and sure seems to be up and going again I don't know if their swiss legend and other lines are being made again or if they are just selling old stock but I thought the whole thing was done but all of the sudden, boom selling watches again....
Oct 4, 2017
Cloaca
1906
Oct 4, 2017
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Danbo_de_PianoWeird. Normally when you have a sudden creditor demand like that and a company folds, the creditor does a quick bulk sale of assets at a deep discount, say to a place like Jomashop or other competitor. They're not going to sell off watches one by one. And the entire staff was supposedly laid off. There's obviously stuff going on that we don't know about. I'm not sure I'd want to place a big order on the website without knowing more. I don't want to become a last-in-line creditor to a bankrupt company.
Found another article from earlier this year, in the South Florida Business Journal, with some more details:
https://www.bizjournals.com/southflorida/news/2017/01/31/swiss-watch-international-closes-business-lays-off.html
Stop the presses. Their Twitter account has risen from the dead:
Worldofwatches‏ @worldofwatchesFollow http://Worldofwatches.com IS BACK: New Ownership, New Management, New Website & Absolutely Better Deals! SHOP: https://www.worldofwatches.com/ 11:28 AM - 13 Jul 2017
The new website looks similar to Jomashop, down to the filtering search feature, although the database for the search factors doesn't seem to be completely populated yet. Is the current website different from before? Is so, maybe Joma bought them. The customer service address is in Brooklyn, just like Joma, although not the same address as Joma; before they were based in Florida.
Oct 4, 2017
Danbo_de_Piano
965
Oct 4, 2017
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Cloacayep like i said all of the sudden boom, they're up and at 'em, would make sense if joma bought up rights for pennies/dimes on the dollar, including old stock, etc. still i never did and am not all that jazzed about the prospect of buying from the old wow, joma, or the new wow. i have heard some pretty horrendous customer 'dis'service stories from people burned by both.
Oct 4, 2017
Cloaca
1906
Oct 5, 2017
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Danbo_de_PianoMystery solved. Jomashop's web developer spilled the beans.
https://websolutionsnyc.com/world-of-watches/
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WorldofWatches.com is the fourth largest watch retailer and number one pure-player in North America. Over 1.4 million watch enthusiasts visit WorldofWatches.com each month. In addition, WorldofWatches.com ranks higher than many other popular online retailers, including Amazon.com in customer rating reviews.
The Problem:
Jomashop had acquired an ailing rival company, World of Watches. They needed to integrate the WoW website into their own eCommerce operations, taking over its sales without losing the valuable SEO setup. The WoW servers were destined for shutdown in just two weeks. With this short of a timeline, Jomashop turned to their longtime trusted partner, Web Solutions NYC, to get the job done in just two weeks.
The Solution:
The new World of Watches site, powered by Magento 2, was launched in just ten days thanks to round-the-clock work by Web Solutions NYC. The new website looked amazing, and Jomashop was overjoyed: “It was great to see our two teams come together to hit this aggressive launch timeframe to go live in 10 days,” said Osher Karnowsky, General Manager of Jomashop. “Magento and Web Solutions NYC came through in a big way to set a new record for a Magento 2 implementation”
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Even more details here:
https://magento.com/blog/customer-stories/we-launched-magento-site-10-days
Oct 5, 2017
Cloaca
1906
Oct 5, 2017
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RandyBrownIt turns out that Jomashop has acquired World of Watches -- see my posts on it above.
Oct 5, 2017
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