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Trying to capitalize on the dollar being in the drain, I thought I’d get myself a new watch to match my personality. Something big and complicated that is. I’ve imported a lot of DVDs in the past so I reckoned this would be a piece of cake, given the well-known brand, small size and low weight of the merchandize. But I was wrong in more than one respect, more about that later.
I don’t even wear watches as it so happens, but I thought I’d start. It is practicality and vanity I suppose. But still, it has been 15 years or so since I last had a wrist watch. And it was actually a Casio back then as well. One of the single sensor thermometer watches (TS100 I believe). Nice watch, but eventually I got tired of replacing the bracelet and battery. And it started to look dated, which is quite understandable since it was released in 1989. Before that I had some sort of calculator watch, also from Casio.
Features I like about the PAW1500T: Perhaps one of the most feature-packed watches ever. Big and chunky. Affordable titanium bracelet that I believe wont shave my arm or open unintentionally. Time is automatically synchronized ("atomic") and recharging is snap ("solar").
Known issues: Some of the sensors are complicated or inaccurate or simply complicated when you need them to be accurate. Without the special circumstances of this particular currency situation it would be wildly unaffordable. Heavy? Too chunky for formal dress, if you own one?
About the shopping experience … Finding a reseller turned out to be quite difficult as I hinted in the introduction. First I had to find the watch and a good price tag with an American reseller. Not as easy as it sounds since this is a fairly high-end watch. And I had to make sure they shipped to international addresses. Then came the shipping rate issue. I didn’t want UPS for a number of reasons. Mostly because it’s expensive and because intuition told me that carriers like UPS tend to do their own customs declaration. I.e. it is a sure way to get caught in customs and have to pay taxes, fees and god knows what else. With USPS there is a chance that it wont get caught since the Swedish postal service takes over at this end. This transition is labour intensive as it is and packages may slip past their checkpoints. I did of course consider fudging the numbers on the package as to not make it stand out as much. Very few wanted to fiddle with the declared value though. Some were rude enough to not even respond. But most declined politely. The only reseller that had a helpful policy in this regard turned out to be a waste of time in every other aspect. In fact that order was effectively killed by the AVS issue and I may have been better of for it considering some of the customer review of that site. Credit / debit card payment overall seem to have gotten really difficult these days. But I eventually found a reseller with a Paypal option. The package is away and so I guess it’s fingers crossed.
Overall, buying a watch online was a shaky experience. Not at all like the streamlined process of ordering a DVD from some media behemoth. The people who sell watches just aren’t the same sort of people who sell DVDs. Many or in fact clueless when it comes to e-commerce, web design and customer support. Many seem to run the business from their garage, don’t respond to emails and don’t indicate if they have their products in stock. Many of the web sites look as though they’ve been largely unchanged since 1995. Not to say they’re out to scam anyone. Just don’t expect the same level of streamlining that you would expect from a modern e-business.
Price: Considerably less than half of that in Sweden (including shipping). If everything goes according to plan with customs that is. If not, it will still be one hell of a deal and about half the price anyway. And yes, I did place the order just before the dollar started to improve against the krona. Exchange rate including various fees (bank+paypal) was 6.77 which is pretty good considering. If I had gotten around to order a couple of weeks earlier I might have been able to make 6.20 but hardly any more than that.
More updates on the experience later …
Update: And the final verdict is posted.
