Bob’s Watches Makes an App

Chris Foerster over at Bob’s Watches contacted me the other day. Bob’s, as you may know, is a premier pre-owned Rolex seller located in Huntington Beach, California (in fact, they’ve now branched out into numerous other luxury brands). And Chris is their Director of Internet Marketing & Commerce.

Chris wanted to tell me about their new iPhone app, still in beta test. He said they looked at numerous apps out there and selected the features they felt a pre-owned and vintage solid watch app should have. They incorporated those features and built them into a nice, tidy, convenient, and super-useful app. The result is pretty amazing.

The usual suspects are here – what you’d expect from an app put out by a vintage and pre-owned watch dealer. The menu along the bottom of the app features five buttons: Buy, Sell, New, Favorites, and Search.

The Buy and Sell buttons do exactly what you think they do. Buy brings you to the complete inventory of Bob’s. on the buy screen, there’s a scrollable brand menu across the top which includes Cartier, Rolex, Tudor, Patek Philippe, Omega, Panerai, Breitling, Breguet, IWC, Tissot, and Vacheron Constantin (I told you they’d branched out).

And you can drill down on individual watches listed on these pages.

The Sell button brings up a form to fill out in case you want to sell a watch to Bob’s. Just enter your name, address, phone number, Rolex model or reference number, amount you’d like to receive, a photo (optional), and any additional information about the watch you’d like to sell.

The New button leads you to new listings for watches Bob’s has just taken in. This is a great feature if you’re checking in daily for a watch you’ve been looking for.

The Favorites button recalls any watches you’ve selected as your ‘favorites,’ for later detailed review.

Search is pretty self explanatory. You can search by reference number or model.

In addition to the menu across the bottom, there’s an extensive dropdown menu that mimics the menu found on the Bob’s website. Along with redundant categories like Buy, Sell, and Favorites, there’s a listing of upcoming events, currently unpopulated, but which will presumably alert you to upcoming promotions at Bob’s and perhaps other notable things in the Rolex universe.

The news link connects you to eighteen current watch news outlets and blogs (we need to get Chris to add in Everest Journal, eh?). And the Forums link similarly connects you with eight of the leading watch forums.

There’s a wealth of reference information included as well. There’s a serial number checker – especially handy when you’re out and about and stumble on a watch you want to research.

You can also access listings of Rolex clasp codes, model numbers, country codes, red letter codes (these are stamped on the certificate and indicate when the watch was shipped), country codes (a three digit code for where the watch was shipped), and a chronology of the evolution of Rolex sapphire crystals by model.

All in all, I think you’ll find the new app from Bob’s Watches to be a great resource both for watch trading activities and as a handy and comprehensive pocket reference for all things Rolex. Check here for more information, and look for it soon in the iTunes Store.

The post Bob’s Watches Makes an App appeared first on Bezel & Barrel written by Ed Estlow.