Bob's Watches is an online marketplace for the resale and trade of watches, with a focus on Rolexes. As of 2016 it was one of the largest watch reselling websites in the United States.[3]
The company was founded in the mid-1990s by Bob Thompson in North Carolina as a local seller of various watch brands and models.[4][5] Thompson retired in 2010 and sold the business to Paul Altieri for $8,000.[6] Altieri relaunched the website, with a focus on reselling Rolex watches.[4][6] From the beginning, its website listed the price that the company would be willing to pay for each watch alongside the price the company would sell the watch for.[4] In 2014 it began offering buyers and sellers of Rolex watches the ability to post selling and buying prices, creating an exchange.[7]
From 2010 the Company had a retail storefront and main offices in a small shopping center in Huntington Beach, California.[4][8] In November 2018, the company moved to a retail storefront and headquarters in a 10,000 square foot, free standing office building in Newport Beach, California.[9] Carol Altieri is Chief Operating Officer.[4]
By 2017 grey market sales of luxury watches were "upending the global watch industry," according to Barron's; exports of new watches from Switzerland fell 10% in 2016 and there was a glut of inventory of new watches, driving prices down.[10]
Altieri paid $8,000 for the business in 2010, buying it from retiring North Carolina dealer Bob Thompson and transforming it from a small local dealer .... "We list both the buy price and sell price," Altieri said. Take an 18-karat yellow gold Rolex Day-Date-Bob's prices the timepiece at $16,595, below the $17,109 regular price and the $31,350 retail price. It would pay the seller $14,000 for the model. That's no secret; the numbers are on the website.....Altieri runs the company with his wife, Chief Operating Officer Carol Altieri, and Chief Financial Officer Joe Alessandrini from a 5,000square-foot space in a Goldenwest Street shopping center. Neighbors include the Mattress Place, a Cash 4 Gold store, 405 Tropical Fish and used-clothier Plato's Closet-hardly the type of next-door neighbors one associates with a luxury watch retailer....The site offers other luxury watch brands, including Patek Philippe and Omega, but it's known for Rolexes.
The site offers other luxury brands--Patek Philippe, Panerai and Omega among them--but is known for its Rolexes