Our First Price Increase Since We Started

Summary: We will be increasing the prices of our products from 7 Jul 2022 to cope with the increase in cost of doing business. This is the first price increase that we have initiated since we started our business in 2018, despite improvements in the quality of our products through the years. To help reduce the impact of the price increase, we will be running a mid-year sale from 1-6 Jul 2022.

One of our brand values is to maintain fair prices. As a customer, you will always want the lowest prices possible, and as fellow consumers, we totally get it. However, this is not sustainable as a brand - profits allow brands like Delugs to continue investing in research and development of new products, sourcing for new material, developing new styles of straps, new accessories, new tools, expanding our Delugs team and also investing in the training and education of our leathercrafters. It gives us the freedom to think big, and imagine what else we can offer to the watch community that no one else is able to.

A more sustainable approach is to offer a fair price for our products, based on our costs, the prices of other comparable products, and the value that our products bring. While this means that we will not price our products exorbitantly, we will also not undercut ourselves.

Improvements in Product Quality

Since we starting selling straps in 2018, we have kept our prices the same with no increases. This is despite significant improvements in the overall quality of our straps and offerings:

The quality of our craftsmanship has improved over the years, as our crafters gain more experience and expertise in crafting straps. We've experiment with new crafting techniques and methods, and stress-tested different materials used in strap production. Small details in the strap production are now more refined, and the overall look and feel of a Delugs strap is now top-in-class and a gold standard for many other brands to aspire towards.
The sub-components of our straps have also increased in quality. Our spring bars are custom developed to give you all the benefits of quick release spring bars, without any of the downsides. Our buckles are made with 316 stainless steel as opposed to the more commonplace 304 stainless steel, offering greater corrosion resistance.
Our strap packaging has gone through many iterations over the years. We first started with plastic ziplock bags, before moving to microfiber bags. However, these did not provide the protection that we needed and were not the most sustainable options. We now offer a strap packaging that not only ensures your straps are well-protected during shipment, but also serves as a proper way to store and organise your strap collection, and can be used together with our Strap Folio.

Increasing Cost of Doing Business

At the same time, our costs have gone up significantly, especially in the last 6 months. Prices of our supplies (leather, buckles, spring bars, packaging material etc) have gone up between 10-30% since we first started. This has resulted in a higher cost per strap.

More significantly, shipping cost have also increased substantially, especially after the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war. As a business with a large percentage of international order, the increase in shipping costs has been especially painful, since we do not have regional warehouses to send out our products from (all products are sent out from Singapore).

As the scale of our business increases, our overhead costs have also increased. We've had to expand our team at Delugs to ensure that orders can be sent out in a timely manner and that your queries do not go unanswered. We took lease on a larger office and warehouse space to ensure that our team has a good working environment, and that there is sufficient space for our products and supplies so that we don't run out of stock.

Price Increase to Reflect New Realities

The increase in quality and value of our products, and the rising costs, have prompted us to review our prices for the first time ever since we started. My team and I did not make this decision lightly, and we've been holding out on increasing prices since the start of this year, trying to negotiate better rates with our suppliers and companies, before arriving at this decision and outcome. Our prices are still in-line with the rest of the market, in accordance with the value that we bring, and this would also allow us to continue operating with sufficient margins to embark on all the various projects that we have lined up for the watch community.

We will be initiating a site-wide price increase from 7 Jul 2022 onwards, and prior to the price increase, to help reduce the impact, we will be running a sale from 1-6 Jul 2022. We hope that this will allow you to get your hands on our products at the old prices (plus additional discounts!) before the price increase. Details of the sales can be found below.

Thank You.

Making a decision like this is never easy, and we know that many of you will be upset to hear this announcement. As painful as it is to make this decision, it is a necessary one in the long-term, to allow us to continue investing in R&D, developing new products, enhancing the online shopping experience, and providing more educational content and value to the watch community.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for your support over the years, watching us go through these growing pains as we build a company and brand for the decades to come, and for trusting us with accessorising your watch collecting journey. We have a lot of exciting developments planned for the rest of 2022, and you can read about them here!

Mid-Year Sales Details

Sales will run from 1 Jul 22, 00:00 until 6 Jul 22, 11:59PM (GMT +8)
Tiered discount for ready stock straps, based on total value of ready stock straps, up to 20% off.
All Watch Accessories at 15% discount
Other details