A few days ago, Rolex launched a program to deliver certification, a guarantee of authenticity, and a two-year warranty for their second-hand watches. It's an interesting move on many levels. We'll try to discuss why it might be interesting for other businesses to think along those lines too.
![](https://content.rolex.com/dam/rolex-sav/buying-a-rolex/rolex-cpo/rolex_cpo_share_explorer-1989_01_outils_sceau_rvb_30pc.jpg)
Why it's innovative
First off, you might consider extending an offer to the second-hand market as just a shrewd sales tactic, but it's far more than that. It's about "changing the market" (my get-go innovation definition) by reaching out to customers of your brand that you never met directly. Worse maybe: customers that you actively ignored as they were not welcome in your flagship stores and official dealerships but had to go through a grey market of their own to access your products.
The paradox is that several second-hand Rolexes have been running well above their retail price for decades. And more recently, the sheer lack of new Rolexes available from Rolex directly created a humongous valuation bubble for people willing to resell their latest models. A 2022 Oyster Perpetual  (retail price €5,700) would routinely be sold well above €30,000 at the start of 2022, sometimes even peaking around €45,000. As an international brand, this asks conflicting questions such as a) should you let this happen? and b) why don't you get this money directly?