عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Varieties

Swiss Watchmakers Target Shoppers Online

The Tag Heuerr watch maker factory is pictured in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Photo: Reuters
The Tag Heuerr watch maker factory is pictured in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Photo: Reuters
TT
TT

Swiss Watchmakers Target Shoppers Online

The Tag Heuerr watch maker factory is pictured in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Photo: Reuters
The Tag Heuerr watch maker factory is pictured in La Chaux-de-Fonds. Photo: Reuters

In order to lure younger shoppers, brands large and small are joining an online push sweeping the luxury goods world, where web sales are already major growth drivers for fashion labels.

Swiss watchmakers were finally convinced that customers would pay thousands to buy intricate timepieces on the web, after a boom in online luxury goods sales.

In an interview at the Baselworld watch trade fair, Jean-Claude Biver, head of Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton-LVMH’s watch business, said: “We didn’t realize the speed at which millennials would take to buying cars or watches online.”

LVMH’s Tag Heuer, a label long associated with motor racing, is looking to fully build out its own shoppable sites over the next 18 months, Biver added.

Tag already operates online stores in five countries including the United States and Britain, and has a partnership in China with JD.com, the company said. According to Reuters, LVMH sister brands Hublot and Zenith are yet to follow suit.

Many watchmakers have flirted with web sales, though often through one-off collaborations with multi-brand web retailers.

Watchmakers have reasons to take control of their online image, as websites run by unofficial resellers proliferate.

Jerome Biard, chief executive of Corum, owned by China’s Citychamp, said: “We want to reassure people, while taking into account that today clients also might like to buy their watch at home.”

The Swiss brand’s first e-commerce site will be fully operational in about two months, Biard added.

Consultancy Bain & Co projects says that web sales are expected to make up a quarter of all global luxury goods sales by 2025, up from around 9 percent last year.

Most Viewed

 
 
Varieties

Scientists: Melting Sea Ice in Antarctica Causes Ocean Storms

Scientists know the damaging consequences of the loss of Antarctic sea ice. Juan BARRETO / AFP
Scientists know the damaging consequences of the loss of Antarctic sea ice. Juan BARRETO / AFP
TT
TT

Scientists: Melting Sea Ice in Antarctica Causes Ocean Storms

Scientists know the damaging consequences of the loss of Antarctic sea ice. Juan BARRETO / AFP
Scientists know the damaging consequences of the loss of Antarctic sea ice. Juan BARRETO / AFP

The record-breaking retreat of Antarctic sea ice in 2023 has led to more frequent storms over newly exposed parts of the Southern Ocean, according to a study published Wednesday.
Scientists know that the loss of Antarctic sea ice can diminish penguin numbers, cause ice shelves to melt in warmer waters, and impede the Southern Ocean from absorbing carbon dioxide, AFP reported.
But this new research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature, explores another consequence: increased heat loss from the ocean to the atmosphere, and an associated rise in storms.
Since 2016 there has been a large-scale reduction in Antarctic sea ice, but nothing like 2023 when a record amount failed to reform over the winter.
For this study, Simon Josey of the UK's National Oceanography Center and colleagues focused on three regions that experienced unusually high levels of sea-ice retreat that year.
Using satellite imagery, ocean and atmospheric data, and wind and temperature measurements, they found some newly ice-free areas experienced double the heat loss compared to a stabler period before 2015.
This was accompanied by "increases in atmospheric-storm frequency" over previously ice-covered regions, the authors found.
"In the sea-ice-decline regions, the June–July storm frequency has increased by up to 7days per month in 2023 relative to 1990–2015."
The loss of heat caused by reduced sea ice could have implications for how the ocean circulates and the wider climate system, the study added.
Oceans are a crucial climate regulator and carbon sink, storing more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped near Earth's surface by greenhouse gas emissions.
In particular, sea-ice retreat could mean changes in how a deeper layer of cold, dense Antarctic bottom water absorbs and stores heat.
The authors said further in-depth analysis of possible climate impacts were needed, including if sea-ice retreat could have even further-reaching consequences.
"Repeated low ice-cover conditions in subsequent winters will strengthen these impacts and are also likely to lead to profound changes further afield, including the tropics and the Northern Hemisphere," it said.