I Turned My Love For Watches Into One Of Australia's Watch Stores

Toby Bensimon

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Published: October 19th, 2022

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About
Business

Toby Bensimon

Founder, Watch Depot

Founders

Employees

Watch Depot

watchdepot.com.au

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started November 2020

Founders

Employees

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Want more updates on Watch Depot? Check out these stories:

How an online watch store went from 500 orders a year to over 5000.

My name is Toby Bensimon and I am the founder of Watch Depot – a trusted online store dedicated to watches for men, women, and kids. We are a hub where customers can get top deals on the top brands, and access everything they will need to know along their journey.

As a family-owned watch store, we offer quality, value, and 100% Australian stock to our customers. Powered by one of Australia’s most trusted jewellery retailers Shiels Jewellers, Watch Depot is an authorized seller of all the top brands. From Casio G-Shock to Tommy Hilfiger, Seiko, Citizen, and Daniel Wellington, we have watches for sale to suit everyone’s timekeeping needs. Shiels customers have been raving about our top deals, top service, and Australian warranty for over 70 years. Now, continue that trend through Watch Depot.

Established just before the pandemic in 2020, Watch Depot has grown into one of Australia’s most successful online stores in a short period. We have done this by offering an extensive range at competitive prices.

What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

Watch Depot was born through my love of watches. I’m an avid watch collector and lover, so you can be sure that our love for watches starts at the top and spreads throughout all aspects of our business.

I have been in the jewellery game since I was born. Jewellery is a family obsession. I have worked in the Shiels Jewellers business since I was a teenager, so it seems very natural to me. My parents always told me that hard work and avoiding more mistakes than our competitors would lead to success. My dad, Albert Bensimon specifically taught me to look through rough patches and think in terms of five to ten-year timeframes when developing strategies. Short-term fixes to problems should always be implemented in a way congruent with long-term goals for the business.

As I’m now the Managing Director of Shiels Jewellers, I wanted to create an imprint specialty site that focused solely on selling watches online. And for all our fellow Watch lovers, Watch Depot is the result of my goal! A hub where you can get top deals on the top brands, and access to everything you will need to know along your journey. At Shiels, we already were genuine stockists of all the top brands, so all we needed to do was extended these relationships across to Watch Depot.

Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.

Because we already had the stockists on board, the journey was mainly about crafting our website. This took a lot of back and forth with our web development agency but after a year of building the site, we were ready to launch. The website had a rigorous planning and review process.

Because we weren't going to have bricks and mortar physical presence like our Shiels and Grahams Jewellers stores, Watch Depot was fairly inexpensive to start. We did not have to pay for a lease, purchase inventory, and budget for employee salaries because we already had all of those things from the Shiels operation.

With the global Internet population growing, 2020 was the perfect time to launch Watch Depot. As we continue to offer a huge selection and competitive pricing, this should only aid our journey. Another advantage we have over brick-and-mortar businesses is that we can stay open 24/7 (even through lockdowns and other disruptions). Let’s hope we don’t have another global pandemic, but if we do, we will be prepared.

Describe the process of launching the business.

In terms of our launch, to be honest, we did not execute any particular strategy. Because Watch Depot was more of a side project at the beginning, we could afford to let it develop at its own pace. It wasn't really till about a year ago that things began to take off and this was largely down to changing our pricing structure to be more competitive and increase our spending on Google ads.

While we had challenges to compete with some of the bigger watch sites in the industry, we have managed to slowly close that gap. One of the biggest things I learned was that it’s easy to take advice from your cousin, or even one of your employees for that matter, but data is always going to tell you the truth. Every decision we make is driven by data.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

The biggest factors to our success so far have been about offering deals, discounts, and sales as well as an extensive range of watches. We’ve also tried to pivot away from being solely focused on sales. To do this, we’ve incorporated a large amount of informational content across the site. We carry a range of different exclusive products and luxury brands, from G-Shock watches to Seiko watches, so our customers want to do a little research beforehand.

We’ve also used contests as a promotional tool to attract and retain customers. This works because people love to win. To spread the word about the contest, word of mouth and social media helped to create attention and buzz. We used a review competition to give users the chance to win a $100 Watch Depot Gift Card! All it took was to simply leave a review on the product page of the product purchased for a chance to win.

Since our launch, we have continued to invest in online advertising. This has helped us to display our content to individuals within and outside of our networks while achieving a return on investment.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

In terms of sales, Watch Depot has grown consistently year after year and I want to keep that momentum going. Our main job is to now optimize the conversion rate because that is the best way to generate more revenue. To do this, we are focusing heavily on user experience and introducing more informational content to help customers make informed purchases.

We are focusing our efforts on site simplicity, improving load time, and optimizing for mobile devices. This is because mobile shoppers spend twice as much money as customers on other platforms so not only will our conversion rates increase, but so will our average order value.

Another one of our major long-term goals is to grow our loyalty database. At present, with Shiels and Grahams, we run a VIP program and this is something we would like to replicate on our other sites. There is a huge opportunity to increase the databases on not only Watch Depot but also on our other new sites; Luminesce Diamonds and Silver Chic. It’s been proven that successful customer loyalty programs result in higher customer retention, vocal brand evangelists, and repeat buyers.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

Starting a business is hard work and time-consuming. You have to be extremely dedicated to seeing it through. But, I have learned so much in this process. I've learned about myself, the industry, and of course running a business. The truth is: when you start a business, you’re likely going to fail at some aspects of it. And this is fine. Watch Depot hasn’t always made money. It has gone through some difficult periods where it has lost money, so disrupting the market has sometimes been essential to our ongoing success.

I’ve learned that business is not always as easy as it seems. It is important to study and take care of the smallest details to be efficient and avoid mistakes. Most importantly, I've learned that if you want to succeed you need to be willing to put in the time and effort required. When we started our business, we were able to acquire customers rapidly and efficiently. We were able to learn how to take care of them and turn them into repeat customers by offering exceptional pricing and service.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

Our e-commerce website is powered by Magento but in the future, we will be shifting to Shopify. The main reason for this change is the simplicity that Shopify provides. There is minimal coding required and it’s easy to scale which means more people can work on the site who are not trained, web developers. Shopify recently introduced a few new features that they working on— 3D images and AI-enabled fulfillment networks. That’s something we are interested in exploring. After all, product images are everything when it comes to e-commerce and that’s particularly the case with watches.

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

I would say the most influential books, podcasts, and resources I’ve come across are all about discovering your purpose and living life with meaning. One recommendation I have is Masters of Scale by Reid Hoffman. He is an expert when it comes to turning businesses into billion-dollar companies.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

The most important thing is to just get started. Don't let the fear of failure hold you back. It will take time to build your business, but it will not happen overnight. No one knows every step of what they're doing when they start out, so learn as you go and continue to grow your brand by being proactive and entrepreneurial.

Start small, start simple, and then grow. Don't expect to be an expert on day one. Ask questions, get advice, and make sure you have done your research before leaping to running your own business.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We are always looking for vibrant, sparkling people to join our team and help achieve this goal. If you have a love for watches, a passion for customer service, and a desire to progress in the fashion industry, we encourage you to apply for a position at Watch Depot. Feel free to chuck us a message on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Where can we go to learn more?

If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!

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