Swiss watchmaker Swatch has opened two new flagship stores in Australia.
The new Melbourne store (Collins Street) will become the watchmaker’s largest Australian store (315 square metres), while Perth (Murray Street Mall) has a modest 72 square metre footprint.
Swatch currently operates stores in Pitt Street (NSW), Bondi Junction (NSW), Queen Street (QLD), Tullamarine (VIC), and South Wharf (VIC).
The Melbourne store includes an ‘open walk-through space’ with glass brick totem walls and product collection islands. The store also features large LED screens sharing the latest product collections, glass and metallic brick walls, and a new consumer bar concept.
Both new stores will offer a similar product range, including collections such as the Bioceramic MoonSwatch. Grant Cohen, manager and owner of Melbourne’s Block Arcade on Collins Street, said the addition of Swatch was evidence of the area’s importance in luxury retail.
“If you want to buy a watch from $40 to $40,000, there is no point in going anywhere else [than this pocket of Collins Street],” he told The Australian Financial Review.
“The opening of the new Swatch store has cemented this whole precinct as the horology centre of Australia.”
Jeweller’s 2024 State of the Industry Report documented 75 brand-only watch stores in Australia. This marked a remarkable increase (251 per cent) since 2010.
Swatch Group – which owns brands such as Omega, Longines, and Tissot – recently reported sales of CHF7.88 billion ($AU13.85 billion), a 5.2 per cent increase on a year-on-year comparison.
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