WBD1316.BA0740
As long term readers are no doubt abundantly aware, the plan for my 50th birthday was thus: my wife had offered to buy me a WAY2015 green dial, Calibre 5 Aquaracer, and in return I had committed to buying her a WBD1316 green dial Aquaracer for her 50th next April. It was all so simple... at least until it wasn't.
Flashback a few months and there I was at the TAG Heuer outlet in Bicester Village trying on watches, when I unwittingly slipped what would eventually become my 50th birthday present on to my wrist. No regrets from me, I love my new titanium Carrera Calibre 16 Day/Date, and when you get a deal like that in an outlet you have to jump on it, right? Besides, the green Aquaracer was barely even out in time for my birthday and I had plenty of time to get one, maybe even next year when I picked up my wife's AR.
Oh yeah, nooooo problem.
Until one day last week I got an email from my contact at the Oxford Street boutique; I had already promised to buy both green Aquaracers from Aneta (who I previously knew from her time at Bicester Village) and had every intention of sticking to that promise... but Aneta had news, and it wasn't good news. She told me that she had sold all her WAY2015s and she wasn't able to get any more in, not only that but she only had one WBD1316 left in stock and after that she wasn't getting any more of those either.
Wait, what?/??#!!
Aneta told me the green dial Aquaracer had been intended not as a new regular Aquaracer, but as a 'one season' novelty. Now three weeks later they had sold all their allotted stock... and no more would be forthcoming.
I was a bit taken aback, I thought I had months to sort out buying my wife's watch, but now suddenly it was a case of buy it now because tomorrow it will be gone!
Hmm, now things were starting to make sense, when I had asked in other jewellers about the green dial Aquaracers they really didn't know what I was talking about, and when they made enquiries they started giving me answers like 'I don't think we'll be getting that one in', or 'I don't know if we'll be stocking that one'. At the time I thought they were being singularly useless, after all 'green' is the cool colour this year, what were they thinking not jumping on this ultra-hip Aquaracer? Now I see they probably weren't ever offered the watch, because the stocks were limited from the get-go.
As much as I really wanted to buy the (one remaining) watch from Aneta as I had promised to do, I couldn't get down to London for about four weeks, so unfortunately I had to turn to the TAG Heuer website to secure my wife's birthday happiness! Oh joy... because buying expensive goods from a website is sooooo luxurious isn't it? Who wouldn't want to do that rather than visit the boutique, have a chat and a glass of champagne, try the watch on and have the bracelet sized while you wait...?
But needs must, so I sat down late on Wednesday night, credit card grasped firmly in my left hand and began the process. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary, I could just as easily have been ordering a toaster... this isn't a criticism of TAG Heuer by the way, it's e-commerce - patently not a 'luxury' experience after all. The website did give me the option to have the bracelet sized but I opted to have it delivered complete
Annoyingly I did experience some difficulties getting the order to place; I had that horrible thing where you click 'Place Order' and the next page wouldn't load, leaving me to wonder if I'd placed my order or not and if I clicked it again was I going to duplicate it? It went on so long that I had no choice but to click it again and when it still didn't work I had to close the page and start again. After three goes the next page finally loaded and my order showed as accepted. Yay!
I ordered the watch late in the evening, well past the 2pm deadline for next day delivery so I wasn't expecting it to come on Thursday. It didn't, but we did get a phone call telling us the watch would be dispatched via Royal Mail and would arrive on Friday. Great news, although it rendered the online tracking with DPD a bit pointless.
Also, for some reason the website changed the delivery address on my order to my card address, despite me having typed in the address I wanted the watch delivered to. Fortunately my wife was at home on the Friday so it wasn't a big deal, but it could have been quite irritating and there didn't seem to be any process to amend it once the order was accepted (and it doesn't give you a final chance like Amazon does to go back and change the address either, which I personally think it should). I was quite surprised actually that the option to have the watch sent to an address other than the card address was there, but to give the option and then change it was more annoying than it not being there in the first place.
Mixed feelings about the website then; delivery was as quick as it could possibly be, but it wasn't exactly a smooth experience and it further reinforced my feelings that I would much rather have visited the Oxford Street store and purchased the watch in person had time not been so pressing.
The watch itself is very nice, that green is quite stunning and it makes me all the more sorry that all the WAY2015s have gone (in the UK at least, the American website is still showing stock and I'm told there's plenty available on that side of the pond), but I'm sure one will turn up eventually - the question is will it start trading over list if it's that popular?
Happily, because of course my wife had never had the chance to actually see the watch in person before it arrived, she loved it and so I didn't have to avail myself of the returns facility. Unhappily for her, the watch now has to sit in it's box for six months until she's 'old enough' to wear it. :)
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