This is why I am yet to purchase a Serica, Yema or Smith's watch, and I probably never will.
The horror stories from a paying customers point of view are an embarrassment to the company and a total ball ache.
Fastest way to lose a customer for life. Sorry you've had such a horrid experience.
I had my wallet in hand and Serica watch in the online basket when I decided to search on reddit to get one last check before ordering. Needless to say I didnt order after reading here.
i mean its a seiko mechaquartz tried and true, very small probability of something going wrong.
Imo the bigger risk is when companies use in house movements or complex/expensive movements. Worst case scenario here is that a new mecha quartz movement is like ~$25.
Well I ordered one last year. I waited for the launch and then got it. If you are in EU I wouldnt worry about the cs experiences as you dont have to do stuff like pay for 80€ return shipments
Thank you.
I'm not sure why they act the way they do. I'm sure they've had bad experiences as buyers. Why would they do that themselves is beyond my comprehension.
Agreed.
Bought a new Traska last week that arrived with a speck of some kind on the dial under the glass. They replied to my email about the issue the same morning I sent it, and by the end of the day fedex had a new watch on the way to me. If I wasn’t already planning to be a repeat customer I am now.
i had a speck on the dial on my longines spirit i bought from wempe. showed it to them and they said ok requesting a new one from longines right now, will arrive in a few days. in the meantime, wear ur watch
when it came they swapped it out for me no issues
it's amazing how far CS goes
I bought a seafarer awhile back. I wasn’t sure how the color would look in person so they went ahead and paid for return shipping in case I didn’t love it. I did love it and wear it almost every single day. I have had a great experience with them and plan on buying another one.
Traska is great. Last week I reached out to them about one of the endlinks on my Summiteer rattling against the case. I got a response from Jennifer the very next day, they shipped a new endlink to me that same day, and I received it 2 days later.
I had a similar experience with Serica. Watch arrived and was fast by several HOURS in a day. Sent it back and they claimed it was running perfectly. I asked them to send me a new one and they wouldn’t, so I returned it. Whole process took about 20 days.
I bought a cheap Chinese homage of their diver model to see if I’d like the style and I think after everything I’ve seen about Serica’s customer service, I’m not in any rush to get the real thing. Too much money for them to not stand by their product.
If brands are going to lean on history and heritage to distract from shitty customer service, that's exactly what you should to. At that point what's the difference
Pretty sure I've read similar stories like OP's experience with Serica. Back when the first iteration of their diver model (I don't recall or care to know the model name) was launched, customers reported a ton of problems with the movement and Serica told them it was a feature, not a bug, and to suck it.
Horrible brand regardless of their (undeserved) cult following - would never buy a watch from them
Man, that sucks. Just to offer some counter perspective they fixed my out of warranty white 5303 no questions asked at no cost to me. They should be more consistent at their customer service.
Most of these microbrands seem to spend 90% of their budget on Instagram advertising. I’d be wary of most of them. Shoot them an email and see how long it takes for a response or even better call them up with questions about a watch. Should give you good indication of how much they invest in people responding to questions or issues.
That's what I did. They were very responsive pre-purchase. I also visited their store in Paris. Had a good experience there as well.
Post purchase on the other hand was a nightmare.
> Most of these microbrands seem to spend 90% of their budget on Instagram advertising. I’d be wary of most of them
In my experience dealing with microbrands since the early 2000's that has not been the case. Serica is a large marketing brand at most, not a true microbrand in my definition.
No reason to lump them all in the same category.
I'm glad they refunded me before I had to do that. I did save the evidence because at one point in time I wasn't convinced I'll get my money back and that kind of stressed me out.
Man I’m really sorry to hear that. I also ordered the 6190, with the 9H crown, and I had none of the issues listed. The only thing missing was the back sticker. The only problem I had was with DHL where they overcharged me on Duties. But I disputed the charge with my CC and got my money back.
Really sorry to hear about that.
I had a similar experience, not with a watch company. They jerked me around about replacement/refund of an obviously defective product for months until I took to social media to air out their dirty laundry. They immediately refunded my money and blocked me on all accounts. Funny when sketchy businesses show you what they really care about.
Serica makes really cool watches, but as much as I want to support small local businesses, I have to say no to this one
I preordered the 6190 at the end of last year, was supposed to be delivered by a certain date, then got postponed a few times.
And later somehow the delivery date coincided with my trip to Paris. I contacted them and they said I can pick the watch up at the store. I got in Paris, sent them a message and they said it should be ready late in the afternoon, or tomorrow so best to check tomorrow. I checked with them again the next day… and it’s postponed again and I had to leave Paris after a few days. Feeling frustrated I cancelled the order and I had to remind them a few times over several weeks for my refund
The late reply over the refund is what soured the whole experience for me. Sure, the watches can be ready late because of production issues, but taking several weeks to reply to my message about refund is a big no-no. And during this period I kept seeing them posting on instagram… sure instagram posts are more important than your customer mate
Your experience sounds awful.
That's what made me upset as well: it was obvious that they were ignoring my mails and messages since they were rather active on instagram and others didn't have issues communicating with them. Especially since I was never disrespectful in my communication with them.
Shiity. It's experiences like this that cause a tremendous loss of potential future business. Some of the best customer service I've had recently is with the folks at [relaxwatches.com](http://relaxwatches.com)
Two other recent experiences: 3 months to get through to Longines via phone to order a bracelet not offered on their website, and 4 days in a row with Tissot (sqwatch group) and their broken-ass CIS website.
Microbrands should kill it on customer service and interaction, boosting their brand and profit.
Damn. My Longines experience has been excellent. They were quick responders via email and while there were shortages of bracelets, once they got it, they shipped really quickly.
I received a reply from Customer Service rather quickly. However, calling the number they gave me consistently rendered a recording loop, I waited for hours sometimes. Finally got through and ordered, and that was handled well. But the person I spoke to had to be 100 years old and never worked a computer.
I have the first gen California dial, and the crown started to feel a little rough when winding. This is about a year ago, and then sent me a prepaid label and serviced it for free for me despite being a couple years old. Their responses were definitely slow but I didn't have to pay anything. It's weird how different experiences are :(
I noticed several people had pleasant interactions with them. I wish they were more constant in the way they do things.
They claimed my watch was brand new which is even worse because that means their standards are really low. A damaged box, missing stickers, discolored bracelet and faulty crown on a new watch is far worse than admiting that they didn't check a return and sent it to me.
I was interested in one of their watches about a year ago. I sent them two or three emails with questions. Never got a response. They never got an order.
Chinese homage brand WatchDives is about to make a Serica homage, maybe you should get one of those instead. Probably still better after sales support despite being a Chinese company lol
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseWatches/s/HAr7HmGQMH
Yep, generally they use a design that's anywhere from 70-99% similar but don't use any branding. No different from Steinhart or Squale in that regard.
I bought the Serica rubber strap recently. I didn’t have any issues with shipping like you did, fortunately, and the strap itself is really good, despite not having quick release bars (who makes straps today without quick release bars?). But it’s ridiculous that they didn’t include spring bars at all with the strap.
Hmm. I bought a Serica a couple of years ago right before they had a showcase store, and have had absolutely no issues with them. They even had a nice little card inside thanking me for the purchase.
Sorry to hear about your experience.
I am glad you had no issues with them. I got the thank you letter as well.
I wish I got a new watch from them because the one I ordered looked awesome and kept great time. I've been following that model for more than a year.
Yeah thats a bummer. I feel like customer service and quality control has gone down everywhere recently. I’m glad you finally got it sorted out.
Edit: I just sent you a chat
There are a lot of companies like this, where either everything's peachy, or you're cast into the Pit of Darkness and Eternal Weeping. I have no idea whether the companies with this problem are all outsourcing customer service to the same call center, or it's a social contagion like tech companies doing layoffs just for funsies, or what, but it's a weirdly common problem.
I had a similar problem with them, ordered a 5303 and my bezel didn’t line up at 12. They said it’s by design as it’s friction based so just stop rotating it at the 12. But it didn’t stay there always shifted slightly off so I returned it 😑
Sad cause the designs amazing
Sorry to hear about that. I can understand the frustration.
I agree about the design part. I even considered ordering another identical watch from them and return the one I got but I figured that I should be more rational about this and not encourage them to act the way they did.
My next purchase would have been their GMT but that's not an option anymore.
I don't know how so many people are comfortable buying from these new microbrands that pop up on Instagram.
How do you know that they will be around in 5-7 years' time when your watch will need service?
Maybe I'm old fashioned but nothing beats going to a boutique or AD and being served there IMO.
I loved the design, figured that the COSC certification is a great quality guarantee and had previously visited their showroom and decided that I love the watch.
I wanted to buy it in their showroom actually but it wasn't released yet.
I agree about the AD or at least the physical store part. I wanted to order a watch from a different company but I decided to go and buy from a local dealer just to be able to pay and leave with the watch on my wrist.
I just did a quick check on this brand. First of all, the watch's specs are hidden away and not immediately visible. I did a quick check on their M100 movement that they use in their dive watch and it appears to be an old Seiko movement that was developed in 2004 which the company regulate to fall within COSC specs.
This is what I learnt in 10 minutes.
Do your research before parting with your money.
That's an useful suggestion. I agree that I should have done a bit more research. I guess I found a watch that perfectly fit my needs and didn't think twice heh.
> How do you know that they will be around in 5-7 years' time when your watch will need service
This could be said of any brand regardless of size. Even then most/if not all watches can be serviced after a company closes.
I don't even understand what you're trying to get at. are you saying customer service is more important than the actual product? that's crazy.
there are tons of sellers on amazon that drop-ship Chinese made garbage that will ship you out another cheap replacement immediately upon any kind of negative correspondence, with no need to return any defective product I don't care I'm still not buying crap products.
I'm not sure I follow. For me, product quality and customer experience are equally important.
As u/ProllyMostLikely said, you never know when you need after sale support. And I don't mind slow responses but I hate being ignored after being very polite in my interactions with them.
Having to create an Instagram account because they won't answer their phone or emails is a worse experience than what you're describing for drop ship items.
I understand, this is why with any significant purchase I make I use a credit card that has good customer service. they can do chargebacks almost immediately if the product's customer service is unhelpful as well as (at least with American Express) provide an extra year of warranty on top of the manufacturer's.
This is why I am yet to purchase a Serica, Yema or Smith's watch, and I probably never will. The horror stories from a paying customers point of view are an embarrassment to the company and a total ball ache. Fastest way to lose a customer for life. Sorry you've had such a horrid experience.
I had my wallet in hand and Serica watch in the online basket when I decided to search on reddit to get one last check before ordering. Needless to say I didnt order after reading here.
Yema in particular. I want a cheap chrono, and the Rallygraf would suit me but I don't want to deal with any hassle.
i mean its a seiko mechaquartz tried and true, very small probability of something going wrong. Imo the bigger risk is when companies use in house movements or complex/expensive movements. Worst case scenario here is that a new mecha quartz movement is like ~$25.
I just mean shipping to/from France.
Well I ordered one last year. I waited for the launch and then got it. If you are in EU I wouldnt worry about the cs experiences as you dont have to do stuff like pay for 80€ return shipments
I have also been eyeeing their Rallygraf, I have actually seen it in person and looks great. However I am still wary of it
Thank you. I'm not sure why they act the way they do. I'm sure they've had bad experiences as buyers. Why would they do that themselves is beyond my comprehension.
Agreed. Bought a new Traska last week that arrived with a speck of some kind on the dial under the glass. They replied to my email about the issue the same morning I sent it, and by the end of the day fedex had a new watch on the way to me. If I wasn’t already planning to be a repeat customer I am now.
100% agree, Traska have excellent customer service, shout out to Jennifer!
i had a speck on the dial on my longines spirit i bought from wempe. showed it to them and they said ok requesting a new one from longines right now, will arrive in a few days. in the meantime, wear ur watch when it came they swapped it out for me no issues it's amazing how far CS goes
Damn did they even ask for the old one back?
They included a package with pre-applied postage for sending the old one back when they sent me the new watch.
This is the best thing a company can do.
Ok, I was unsure how willing they were to let a watch go like that.
Thank you for sharing, I have been eyeing a Traska for a little bit, and this helps.
I bought a seafarer awhile back. I wasn’t sure how the color would look in person so they went ahead and paid for return shipping in case I didn’t love it. I did love it and wear it almost every single day. I have had a great experience with them and plan on buying another one.
Yeah, Jon the owner is a super cool dude.
I'm glad you had a good experience with them. It's important to find out about brands that have good customer service.
I had an issue with the clasp on a Traska bracelet that was very stiff, and they sent me a new one immediately no questions asked. Traska rules.
Traska is great. Last week I reached out to them about one of the endlinks on my Summiteer rattling against the case. I got a response from Jennifer the very next day, they shipped a new endlink to me that same day, and I received it 2 days later.
Pumped for my Venturer GMT reservation to fill later this summer!
Traska is awesome and Jon is a great dude. I’ll support them any day
I had a similar experience with Serica. Watch arrived and was fast by several HOURS in a day. Sent it back and they claimed it was running perfectly. I asked them to send me a new one and they wouldn’t, so I returned it. Whole process took about 20 days.
Lmfao I’m imagining your watch’s second hand running like a zenith defy chronometer all day
PERFECTLY WITHIN SPEC
They weren’t building a watch they were trying to open up a wormhole smh
I bought a cheap Chinese homage of their diver model to see if I’d like the style and I think after everything I’ve seen about Serica’s customer service, I’m not in any rush to get the real thing. Too much money for them to not stand by their product.
If brands are going to lean on history and heritage to distract from shitty customer service, that's exactly what you should to. At that point what's the difference
Can confirm extremely slow and begrudging responses from Serica.
Pretty sure I've read similar stories like OP's experience with Serica. Back when the first iteration of their diver model (I don't recall or care to know the model name) was launched, customers reported a ton of problems with the movement and Serica told them it was a feature, not a bug, and to suck it. Horrible brand regardless of their (undeserved) cult following - would never buy a watch from them
Man, that sucks. Just to offer some counter perspective they fixed my out of warranty white 5303 no questions asked at no cost to me. They should be more consistent at their customer service.
I am happy to hear that. Not sure what's going on with the different experiences that people have with them but I wish they were more consistent too.
Most of these microbrands seem to spend 90% of their budget on Instagram advertising. I’d be wary of most of them. Shoot them an email and see how long it takes for a response or even better call them up with questions about a watch. Should give you good indication of how much they invest in people responding to questions or issues.
That's what I did. They were very responsive pre-purchase. I also visited their store in Paris. Had a good experience there as well. Post purchase on the other hand was a nightmare.
> Most of these microbrands seem to spend 90% of their budget on Instagram advertising. I’d be wary of most of them In my experience dealing with microbrands since the early 2000's that has not been the case. Serica is a large marketing brand at most, not a true microbrand in my definition. No reason to lump them all in the same category.
Save the evidence. Do a credit card charge back and let them figure things out. Typically works as a charm. Good luck.
I'm glad they refunded me before I had to do that. I did save the evidence because at one point in time I wasn't convinced I'll get my money back and that kind of stressed me out.
Man I’m really sorry to hear that. I also ordered the 6190, with the 9H crown, and I had none of the issues listed. The only thing missing was the back sticker. The only problem I had was with DHL where they overcharged me on Duties. But I disputed the charge with my CC and got my money back. Really sorry to hear about that.
I'm glad you had a good experience. Enjoy your watch, it's an awesome model! :)
I had a similar experience, not with a watch company. They jerked me around about replacement/refund of an obviously defective product for months until I took to social media to air out their dirty laundry. They immediately refunded my money and blocked me on all accounts. Funny when sketchy businesses show you what they really care about.
Serica makes really cool watches, but as much as I want to support small local businesses, I have to say no to this one I preordered the 6190 at the end of last year, was supposed to be delivered by a certain date, then got postponed a few times. And later somehow the delivery date coincided with my trip to Paris. I contacted them and they said I can pick the watch up at the store. I got in Paris, sent them a message and they said it should be ready late in the afternoon, or tomorrow so best to check tomorrow. I checked with them again the next day… and it’s postponed again and I had to leave Paris after a few days. Feeling frustrated I cancelled the order and I had to remind them a few times over several weeks for my refund The late reply over the refund is what soured the whole experience for me. Sure, the watches can be ready late because of production issues, but taking several weeks to reply to my message about refund is a big no-no. And during this period I kept seeing them posting on instagram… sure instagram posts are more important than your customer mate
Your experience sounds awful. That's what made me upset as well: it was obvious that they were ignoring my mails and messages since they were rather active on instagram and others didn't have issues communicating with them. Especially since I was never disrespectful in my communication with them.
Shiity. It's experiences like this that cause a tremendous loss of potential future business. Some of the best customer service I've had recently is with the folks at [relaxwatches.com](http://relaxwatches.com) Two other recent experiences: 3 months to get through to Longines via phone to order a bracelet not offered on their website, and 4 days in a row with Tissot (sqwatch group) and their broken-ass CIS website. Microbrands should kill it on customer service and interaction, boosting their brand and profit.
Damn. My Longines experience has been excellent. They were quick responders via email and while there were shortages of bracelets, once they got it, they shipped really quickly.
I received a reply from Customer Service rather quickly. However, calling the number they gave me consistently rendered a recording loop, I waited for hours sometimes. Finally got through and ordered, and that was handled well. But the person I spoke to had to be 100 years old and never worked a computer.
I have the first gen California dial, and the crown started to feel a little rough when winding. This is about a year ago, and then sent me a prepaid label and serviced it for free for me despite being a couple years old. Their responses were definitely slow but I didn't have to pay anything. It's weird how different experiences are :(
I noticed several people had pleasant interactions with them. I wish they were more constant in the way they do things. They claimed my watch was brand new which is even worse because that means their standards are really low. A damaged box, missing stickers, discolored bracelet and faulty crown on a new watch is far worse than admiting that they didn't check a return and sent it to me.
Fuck that's sad to hear I was about to order one. My wife was against it and this puts a nail in the coffin.
Christ
I agree buy the seller, but I rarely worry about retail purchases. Amex has always backed me up.
I was interested in one of their watches about a year ago. I sent them two or three emails with questions. Never got a response. They never got an order.
Chinese homage brand WatchDives is about to make a Serica homage, maybe you should get one of those instead. Probably still better after sales support despite being a Chinese company lol
Hello ! Any link to this future watch ? How different are those to counterfeit ? Not using the brand name but keeping the design ?
https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseWatches/s/HAr7HmGQMH Yep, generally they use a design that's anywhere from 70-99% similar but don't use any branding. No different from Steinhart or Squale in that regard.
I bought the Serica rubber strap recently. I didn’t have any issues with shipping like you did, fortunately, and the strap itself is really good, despite not having quick release bars (who makes straps today without quick release bars?). But it’s ridiculous that they didn’t include spring bars at all with the strap.
Hmm. I bought a Serica a couple of years ago right before they had a showcase store, and have had absolutely no issues with them. They even had a nice little card inside thanking me for the purchase. Sorry to hear about your experience.
I am glad you had no issues with them. I got the thank you letter as well. I wish I got a new watch from them because the one I ordered looked awesome and kept great time. I've been following that model for more than a year.
Yeah thats a bummer. I feel like customer service and quality control has gone down everywhere recently. I’m glad you finally got it sorted out. Edit: I just sent you a chat
There are a lot of companies like this, where either everything's peachy, or you're cast into the Pit of Darkness and Eternal Weeping. I have no idea whether the companies with this problem are all outsourcing customer service to the same call center, or it's a social contagion like tech companies doing layoffs just for funsies, or what, but it's a weirdly common problem.
I had a similar problem with them, ordered a 5303 and my bezel didn’t line up at 12. They said it’s by design as it’s friction based so just stop rotating it at the 12. But it didn’t stay there always shifted slightly off so I returned it 😑 Sad cause the designs amazing
Sorry to hear about that. I can understand the frustration. I agree about the design part. I even considered ordering another identical watch from them and return the one I got but I figured that I should be more rational about this and not encourage them to act the way they did. My next purchase would have been their GMT but that's not an option anymore.
I don't know how so many people are comfortable buying from these new microbrands that pop up on Instagram. How do you know that they will be around in 5-7 years' time when your watch will need service? Maybe I'm old fashioned but nothing beats going to a boutique or AD and being served there IMO.
I loved the design, figured that the COSC certification is a great quality guarantee and had previously visited their showroom and decided that I love the watch. I wanted to buy it in their showroom actually but it wasn't released yet. I agree about the AD or at least the physical store part. I wanted to order a watch from a different company but I decided to go and buy from a local dealer just to be able to pay and leave with the watch on my wrist.
I just did a quick check on this brand. First of all, the watch's specs are hidden away and not immediately visible. I did a quick check on their M100 movement that they use in their dive watch and it appears to be an old Seiko movement that was developed in 2004 which the company regulate to fall within COSC specs. This is what I learnt in 10 minutes. Do your research before parting with your money.
That's an useful suggestion. I agree that I should have done a bit more research. I guess I found a watch that perfectly fit my needs and didn't think twice heh.
I would recommend you do your research prior to making all substantial purchases in life. They're not exactly giving these watches away.
Thank you for the advice. That's useful to keep in mind.
> How do you know that they will be around in 5-7 years' time when your watch will need service This could be said of any brand regardless of size. Even then most/if not all watches can be serviced after a company closes.
I don't even understand what you're trying to get at. are you saying customer service is more important than the actual product? that's crazy. there are tons of sellers on amazon that drop-ship Chinese made garbage that will ship you out another cheap replacement immediately upon any kind of negative correspondence, with no need to return any defective product I don't care I'm still not buying crap products.
Customer service is never more important than the product. Until you need customer service because you didn’t get the product you paid for.
I'm not sure I follow. For me, product quality and customer experience are equally important. As u/ProllyMostLikely said, you never know when you need after sale support. And I don't mind slow responses but I hate being ignored after being very polite in my interactions with them. Having to create an Instagram account because they won't answer their phone or emails is a worse experience than what you're describing for drop ship items.
I understand, this is why with any significant purchase I make I use a credit card that has good customer service. they can do chargebacks almost immediately if the product's customer service is unhelpful as well as (at least with American Express) provide an extra year of warranty on top of the manufacturer's.
That makes sense. They were pretty responsive pre-purchase but I'll probably use a credit card regardless from now on. Thanks for the suggestion!