Eleven James is essentially a subscription rental service for luxury watches founded in 2013 by Mr. Randy Brandoff, a watch lover and former Netjets executive. In early 2014, Eleven James went live with an ambitious goal - to disrupt the deeply traditional timepiece industry when it came to experiencing luxury watches. Fraught with logistical complexities given the high value and high expectations of its potential customers, Eleven James was a good idea that could have blossomed or sank.
Now in its fifth quarter of operation, Eleven James appears to be growing steadily with positive customer experiences and a quickly growing inventory of timepieces, and currently, it is still exclusively for customers with an address in the United States. I was hesitant to delve deeply into the company until I felt it had proved its staying power and able to overcome what I saw were a lot of obstacles - which I commented on during an interview with the New York Times here. Eleven James will soon celebrate its 18 month anniversary and has undergone several rounds of investment funding. According to Brandoff, Eleven James already has a few dozen employees, many of whom are involved in satisfying the needs of prospective or existing customers.
The basic idea of using Eleven James is that you sign up for one of the varied service tiers that operate a lot like the disc rental plans from Netflix. A certain amount of money each month will get you a certain amount of watches "in rotation" of various price points. Increase that budget and you get not only more available watches to borrow at any given time, but more exclusive ones. Keeping up with the inventory has been a challenge admits Brandoff. He estimates that only 1/3 of their given stock of timepieces is on their site at any given time. Eleven James only uses original photography, and is constantly getting in new watches. While they aren't specific about how many timepieces they have in their possession at any given moment, it is likely to be in the hundreds.
Where Eleven James gets new watches to add to its growing collection of available to rent timepieces is another area of complexity. According to Brandoff, Eleven James acquires new and pre-owned watches for its collection from a wide variety of sources, including buying them directly from brands or dealers to purchasing them from estate sales. This brings up the obvious question of how traditional watch makers feel about Eleven James. One possible scenario would be that watch makers looked at Eleven James with hostility, viewing it as taking away from the sale of new watches.
Brandoff responds that at first, Eleven James was probably not large enough to elicit a major response from watch makers, but more recently, their reception to Eleven James has been positive. During our interview, he didn't seem to suggest that any watch companies approached Eleven James with anything outside of optimism or simply curiosity.
In fact, it is curiosity which perhaps is Eleven James' biggest asset. Now over a year old, Eleven James realizes that one of its most valuable benefits to consumers is the ability to "try before you buy." Eleven James subscribers often use the reserve to "date" new watches before deciding to purchase them. Watches on Eleven James probably have a low-end retail value of $5,000, and can wildly go up from there. Even dedicated watch lovers appreciate that purchasing a luxury timepiece is an investment that requires careful consideration, so for many of them, Eleven James is a useful tool in allowing them to discover what timepieces they will truly fall in love with. Eleven James customers can even buy the watches.
While they represent a minority, the most dedicated Eleven James customers can benefit from a unique bevy of "off the menu" services ranging from custom plans to flat out buying watches. Eleven James is now seeing interest from customers quite literally trying before buying as rental watches turn into new purchases. Eleven James even offers a program that allows customers to loan their timepiece to Eleven James to use in their rental inventory in exchange for credit toward membership dues.
Members can even quickly earn "points" by renting watches and referring other customers, which helps them remain loyal. One of the things I think Eleven James does better than most other companies in the watch space is be very focused on a positive consumer experience. While European companies are overwhelmingly involved in the production of luxury watches, they don't always have the best reputation for customer service, given cultural differences that sometimes seem to dictate conveying the message to consumers that buying their products is a privilege.
Customization, points, and a dedicated hands-on customer service staff seem to be the cornerstones of what Eleven James is doing right in the face of the technical and logistical complexity of sending out and collecting valuable inventory of a daily basis. Eleven James is also data-obsessed, with Brandoff favoring making business decisions based on survey responses and popularity of timepieces. He closely monitors not only what customers are doing, but also what they say that they want.
This brings up another very interesting point about how Eleven James does business and curates their collection of watches - they appear to react to customer request for new products as opposed to steering their customers to their available stock. One concern I had when Eleven James started was that there would never be enough watches as well as a large enough variety of watches to keep serious timepiece aficionados interested.
It turns out that Eleven James doesn't just stock popular brands like Rolex, Audemars Piguet, IWC, and Omega, but also offers niche models that help enthusiasts really explore offerings from unique independent brands such as F.P. Journe and Arnold & Son. What I've come to appreciate is that Eleven James is responsive to its customers, who themselves are one of the biggest assets Eleven James has. While the company has many novice watch lovers and is interested in appealing to as many people as possible, one of the most flattering things that might be said about them is that a lot of real watch collectors have seen value in their service.
Not just anyone can be an Eleven James member. All applicants go through a screening process conducted by an actual human being to ensure they are a good fit. This is mostly to project Eleven James against things like fraud and customers who might not respect watches that they ultimately need to return for use by others. Brandoff comments that the number of times watches have been lost or stolen is actually quite minimal, but he feels that a careful selection of applicants is very important to ensuring a consistent high level of quality for everyone. With that said, only a small number of Eleven James member applicants are denied.
Probing about continued challenges the company has, Brandoff admitted that one of the most frustrating issues isn't about money, but rather bracelet size. Watches that come on bracelets must be sized for each owner, and despite best efforts, sometimes a watch needs to be sent back and forth a few times to get the size just right. Eleven James is working on better sizing tools, but it illustrates one of the minor, yet complex matters which arise when dealing with the rental of timepieces.
Eleven James isn't the first time someone considered a business to loan out luxury watches, but it appears to be the one everyone is talking about, and if their success grows, I am sure that there will be competitors. With that said, Eleven James continues to work out many of the wrinkles involved in a business of this type and replicating their model will not be without a significant investment.
At the end of the day, what is important to me is the value to consumers. I am intrigued that enough watch lovers have found value in Eleven James as tool to test watches before they commit to buying them. That Eleven James has proved useful, reliable, and approachable is a testament to Brandoff's leadership which I hope will continue to move the company to the next level.
The most recent news for Eleven James is the debut of a new $149 per month plan, which exists as their more affordable option. At $149 per month, customers can loan one "Enthusiast" level watch each four months. The next level up is $299 per month and membership prices can go up to $1,379 per month to access the most high-end timepieces Eleven James has to offer. They, of course, offer discounts for annual memberships.
At $149 per month, Eleven James hopes to attract more causal enthusiasts looking to dabble in the world of fine watches as well as more corporate inventive programs. In addition to selling memberships directly to consumers Eleven James is interested business to business sales so that companies can offer unique ways of giving back or motivating their work forces. It is an interesting entrepreneurial angle that people like Randy Brandoff are well-acquainted with and how Eleven James will continue to grow. For watch enthusiasts curious about the benefits of Eleven James, I'd say that while the company is still growing and evolving, they've proven themselves enough to merit serious attention and inquiry, as the idea of trying out a lot of watches without having to first buy them can be very appealing.
Ariel Adams is the founder and editor of the watch review site aBlogtoWatch.com.
