about Invicta watches even if they didn’t intend to buy from him, and he
always took the time to respond. Ken’s approach appealed to Invicta
collectors. Within a few months he had hundreds of eBay feedbacks, all
of them positive.
Chris, who holds a public relations degree, realized what his father
was building and wondered whether what Ken had accomplished with
Invicta on eBay could be extended to other brands and other sales
channels, including a company website and social media. Chris joined
the business, which the pair christened Time Visions (www.TimeVi-
sions.com) to reflect the company’s mission to provide a luxury
retail shopping experience online, with all the attention to detail of a
neighborhood watch seller. They added video to their listings and now
have a successful YouTube channel offering tutorials as well as product
videos (https://goo.gl/PtsjbL).
Time Visions today is an authorized dealer for brands such as
Vostok-Europe, Reactor, Junkers, Zeppelin, JBW and more. Obtain-
ing authorized dealership status can be difficult for online dealers,
as manufacturers must protect their brick-and-mortar partners from
online price competition. While gray-market opportunities with big-name
brands are always present and likely profitable, Time Visions turns
down such options because it could not offer warranty protection for
those products.
“It’s a big deal for us,” says Ken. “We work with each manufac-
turer to understand the features of every watch we offer so that we
can answer your questions before you buy and support your service
requirements after your purchase. A huge chunk of our business is
repeat customers who choose us knowing that if anything ever goes
wrong with their watch, they’ll be supported both by us and the brand
itself. You can’t generate that level of trust without being an autho-
rized dealer.”
Time Visions has grown tremendously since it started as a humble
eBay store, but its philosophy hasn’t changed. Ken and Chris still spend
up to three hours on the presentation for each watch they stock, and
Time Visions’ commitment to ensuring that customers know exactly
what they’re buying has never wavered.
About Time Magazine | 97