Seiko 5 Wristwatch

In the 80s, Casio sold digital watches at convenience and drug stores, and as a result, revolutionized the channel strategy for the entire industry. Since then, a gradual shift has taken place. Casio no longer sells a lot of their models here in the US. A lot of convenience stores no longer carry watches. Furthermore, it is extremely difficult to find non-luxury automatic watches in the US. As far as I can tell, Seiko doesn’t sell automatic watches in the U.S. anymore.

After looking around, it turns out that the watch market is thriving online and it is now an international business. If you go onto Ebay, you can find thousands of watches that are shipped from Singapore and Hong Kong. These sellers take watches manufactured for the Asian market and ship overseas to the US.

I was looking for an automatic watch since my old one ran out of batteries, and decided to order one off of Ebay. So, I am eagerly awaiting my Seiko 5. I ordered a Seiko SNK809k1. That model is apparently based off of a 7S26a movement, which is tunable.

Overall, I paid about half of what I would pay (including shipping) for a comparable watch from a fashion watch brand like Fossil, Skagen, Swatch, etc. On top of that, I get a neat watch with an automatic movement.