Guide: watch shopping in Tokyo

Text/photo: Andreas Johansson

There are many of us who have noted that the Japanese prices on international sites are often the lowest and Tokyo is often mentioned as one of the best cities in the world to buy watches on the second-hand market. But how cheap is it and what does the range actually look like? In this report we travel to Tokyo and take the pulse the second-hand market, come along. 

There are extremely many watch dealers in Tokyo, there are of course authorised retailers, flagship stores and shops for the second-hand market. The shops are spread out across the whole gigantic city, but in some areas there are several watch dealers that are gathered in the same place, among others in the Ginza area. This part of the city is Tokyo's ”downtown” here are the big ”dragons'” shops like Grand Seiko, Omega, Richard Mille, Vacheron Constantin, official Rolex dealers, etc. There are also quite a lot of vintage shops. Ginza is crammed with tourists regardless of the season and you can spend several days here in the hunt for the perfect watch. There are also fairly big distances between the shops so have a strategy for how you are going to lay out the days in Ginza.   

Another place for watch shopping is the department store Nakano Broadway and here there are several watch shops on the first and third floors of the mall. Here there are the most vintage shops and no official retailers. The shops that focus on the second-hand market are very varying, some of them focus only on one brand like Rolex (by far the most common), Grand Seiko, and Omega, other shops mix all brands, then there are also smaller shops that focus on a specific type of watch like the Omega Speedmaster. In Nakano Broadway too it is a matter of having plenty of time, there are so many watches to look at that it is almost overwhelming to get through in one day, prepare yourself for a watch shock! The range of watches is not only many-faceted, there are also very many unusual watches that at least I have not seen in reality. There are unusual models of well-known brands like Rolex, Patek Philippe and Vacheron Constantin, but there are also a number of watches from independent manufacturers like Czapek, Arnold & Son, etc.  

The range in Nakano Broadway consists mainly of vintage watches and many of these watches are in fantastic condition. Just to mention something I several of my personal favourites like the Rolex GMT 1675 and the Milgauss 1019 in extremely fine condition. The pre-owned watches are often polished and come with one or two years' guarantee. To walk around in this department store is like among these luxury watches is like being on chrono24 but in physical form. But the prices here resemble more those in Europe, so it is relatively expensive. The nowadays so popular models from the well-known watch manufacturers have the same prices as the European second-hand market, so it is not cheaper to buy a Rolex GMT ”Pepsi” in Tokyo. The fact is that it can even become more expensive since you have to add Swedish VAT for more expensive goods that you import. The high prices mean that you would like to negotiate the price, but unlike Swedish dealers it is very difficult to get any discount, on the other hand you can shop VAT-free as a Swede and thereby get a 10% deduction on the price.

Partly both the shops in Ginza and Nakano Broadway feel like shops in the high-end segment. In both Ginza and Nakano Broadway it is moreover full of tourists who have exactly the same aim as you, to find a bargain. The Japanese watch dealers are naturally aware that watch shopping in Japan is considered the best in the world. But when I was on site I met several dealers from the USA and Europe who expressed their disappointment that the bargains were picked out and that it was generally quite expensive. But are there then no bargains to be made in the above-mentioned places? Yes, of course there are. But it is a matter of doing your research carefully and the bargains are found mainly in Japanese-made watches like Grand Seiko and older vintage watches and once you find a good-value watch that you want, do not wait, strike straight away otherwise wait the next buyer around the corner. 

So is it worth travelling to Tokyo for watch shopping? Both yes and no. First and foremost, if you have money and are ready to buy your dream watch then it will with the greatest likelihood be found in Tokyo, moreover there will be several alternatives of the same watch so that way you can pick and choose and trying the watch on the arm is after all worth gold. Besides you can find several ”Japan market only” watches from all brands. But just as in the rest the Japanese market has moved online, this is where you can find real bargains. In Japan it is the site Yahoo-auction that is the biggest but you have to have an address in Japan to shop there. But should you now want to travel to Japan it is difficult to give general tips about a specific shop, but if I were to travel to Tokyo again I would go back to Nakano Broadway, there were plenty of smaller shops where there were fun and slightly cheaper models. But if you want to find a bargain then the tip I would give you is to try to get away from the above-mentioned tourist routes and find dealers on the outside of the city, but try to do research before you go to the shop. I myself went to several places outside Tokyo, but not all were still there. Finding bargain watches in Tokyo is a challenge, but it is a fantastic city to travel to in order to see and try models that you have never seen live.