I’d like to give 2 solid thumbs up to the Sekonda Watch Company. I purchased a watch made by them in 2006 on my way home from Ireland with my leftover Euros that I just needed to get rid of instead of trying to get them exchanged back.
I love the watch and it treated me well for a couple years, but the band began to crack after about 2.5 years, so I stopped wearing it all the time for fear of it breaking completely.
Turns out the bands are made special for each model watch they make, they don’t use a standard band so I can’t just go into a store and buy a new band to put on it. On top of that, there are no dealers for Sekonda here in the US, which makes it even tougher to get a new band, or so I thought.
Last Tuesday I sent an email to their “info” email address and included a photo of the front and back of my watch, asking if they carried and sold the replacement bands for them still. I got an email back the next day with some contact information from the manager of the materials department who had identified which watch I had, and checked inventory and told me he had bands in stock, and how much they would be to have them shipped to me.
One 10 minute phone call later, I had purchased 2 bands from them via credit card over the phone, and then I followed it up with an email with my billing and shipping addresses, just in case there was a misunderstanding on the phone. They mailed them out that day(Wednesday 5/13) and I recieved them today(Monday 5/18).
I am impressed, like, really impressed! and it only cost me 23 Euros including shipping… which is somewhere right around $30 US. So $15 a band, which to me is totally acceptable considering I love the watch, and the bands were shipped all the way from England to get to me.
Now here’s the real question… Do I see how long it takes me to figure out how to install the new bands, or do I take it somewhere to be installed for me? I am guessing I will give it a hour before I give up and take it somewhere…