Chrono24 Review: Is This Watch Market Site Legit?

This article will take a look at how Chrono24 works, if it’s legit, and if you should use it to buy or sell your next watch.

Watch collecting can be very expensive. Even if your forte is affordable, entry-level timepieces, owning a few of them requires some upfront capital.

If you’re like most watch collectors, you’re looking for a great deal to save money and also protect your investment. Buy low, sell high, as they say.

In your watch-shopping travels, you’ve certainly come across Chrono24. This site is a place designed for watch enthusiasts and Authorized Dealers to get together to buy and sell watches at a fair price. On the surface, it sounds like an awesome place to enjoy the hobby.

The watch selection is enormous, they get a ton of visitors each day, and you can find some real steals.

But is it legit?

This article will take a look at how Chrono24 works, if it’s legit, and if you should use it to buy or sell your next watch.

What Is Chrono24?

Chrono24 calls itself “The World’s Watch Market,” and that’s a fair description. The company has been in business since 2003. They provide a platform for watch buyers and sellers (including authorized dealers) to come together and strike a deal on a ton of different watches.

The company’s headquarters are in Karlsruhe, Germany, but they’re a worldwide outfit. They have an editorial office in Berlin, a location in New York City, and a home in Hong Kong. They service watch enthusiasts in over 100 different countries.

Through Chrono24, private parties and dealers can buy or list watches for sale. According to Chrono24, a watch listing has the potential to reach over nine million buyers throughout a given month. Though it’s free to list a watch, Chrono24 does take a commission when it sells.

What Watches Can You Find on Chrono24?

It’s important to understand that Chrono24 is not a watch dealer or shop. They have no “inventory,” they simply manage listings and transactions.

As such, there’s no consistent list of brands or inventory. The listings are constantly changing, subject to what sellers are listing, lasting only until buyers snatch them up.

At the time of this article, Chrono24 has over 497,000 watches from 119 countries. Over 72,000 of those watches are Rolexes and almost 35,000 Omegas. They also have just under 9,000 listings for Oris watches. If you’re shopping for a JLC, you’ll find over 7,000 listed on Chrono24.

With this wide range of listings, you’re likely to find what you’re looking for. As a Seiko fanboy, I have over 12,000 choices, from a vintage Seahorse to an array of divers, I can find whatever I’m after.

How Chrono24 Works

Chrono24 is really no different than any classified site, other than it can potentially provide a safe platform for large transactions. It works like almost any other site, with a few exceptions.

Selling on Chrono24

Selling a watch is relatively straightforward. All you have to do is head to the site and start a listing. You’ll enter your watch’s reference number, after which Chrono24 will automatically enter much of the necessary information.

If your watch is exceedingly rare, you may need to enter relevant information, such as the brand, reference number, and dimensions.

At this point, Chrono24 will suggest a price to you based on current and former listings.

If you want to list your watch for a different price, you may by entering your desired price in the appropriate field. After entering some other details, such as movement and caliber information, case material, strap material, and any mods, you’re ready to add some pictures.

This is where Chrono24’s safety measures start to ramp up. While you’re adding pictures, Chrono24 will ask you to set the time on your watch to a specific time, on two occasions, and submit them as a bid to your legitimacy.

By adjusting the time and snapping the shots, you’re letting the staff at Chrono24 know that you probably have this watch in your possession.

For this article’s sake, I pretended to sell my Seiko Flightmaster SNA411P1 (which has jumped in price quite a bit since I bought it). I entered the reference number and supporting information, took the required images, and then entered my personal information to complete the registration.

That’s all it takes to list your watch. While documenting the steps, it took me ten minutes to get through, backing out right before step four (I’m never selling this watch). The next step is the summary of the listing. Once you agree, Chrono24 lists your watch on the site.

Buying a Watch on Chrono24

You can purchase a watch just as easily. For the sake of education only, I chose to shop for a Seiko SLA037. I simply entered the reference number in the search bar and found nine drool-worthy Hi-Beat Divers ranging in price from $6,600 to $10,000.

They were all listed by Chrono24-verified dealers and offered plenty of wallpaper-level images.

As you can expect from the process of listing a watch, the listing offers a ton of information. If you don’t already know all about the particular watch you’re pining over, you can check reference numbers, color codes, condition, and stats like dimensions and water resistance.

You can also find out if your prospective watch comes with its papers and original box.

If you’re interested but want more information, you can contact the seller at this point and ask any questions. You can ask for more pics, some closer shot of a scratch or blemish, or any other questions you have. This is the time to ask.

Once you’re satisfied with the condition of the watch, and you’re sure it’s worth your money, you can buy it directly through the Chrono24 site. You can use a credit card, sign up for an affirm account, or set up a bank transfer.

You may also be able to set up a “Trusted Checkout,” which we’ll get into next.

Trusted Checkout: The Watch-Buying Escrow Account

If reading about how easy it is to set up a listing set off any red flags for you, you’re a smart shopper. The truth is that private sellers can list anything they want to, for any price, and not all of these watches are worth the money.

While Chrono24 attempts to verify possession by requiring images set to specific times, this is hardly a foolproof plan.

To safeguard its customers from risky purchases, Chrono24 will set up an escrow account to hold the purchase funds while the buyer verifies that everything is legit. It’s available for use by all sellers, but not everyone elects to use the service.

If you’re purchasing a watch on Chrono24, it’s probably worth using the Trusted Checkout. If you receive the watch and it turns out to be fake or not as described, contacting Chrono24 before they release the escrow funds to the seller is at least a path of recourse.

If you don’t use the Trust Checkout system, make sure you use a service that will help protect you if the deal goes awry. A trusted credit card company or PayPal may help you figure out a bad deal and hopefully recover your funds.

Chrono24 Fees: What Does It All Cost?

Such an attractive platform for moving high-end luxuries has to cost something, right? Chrono24 has to make money. Here are some of the services they provide and the cost involved for each.

Buying a Watch

Watch shoppers don’t have to pay anything extra to purchase a watch off the Chrono24 website. However, signing up for a payment plan through Affirm may cost a bit in interest.

Trusted Checkout

Setting up a Trusted Checkout Transaction is free for both watch buyers and sellers. Chrono24 does this to provide some extra insurance in a bid to increase the chance you’ll spend your money through their site.

However, if you’re paying with an AmEx card, you could incur additional charges to offset Chrono24’s increased transaction fee.

Listing a Watch

It doesn’t cost anything to list your watch other than a few minutes spent setting up your listing. You can list one watch or several at a time, all free of charge.

Insurance

If you placed your order through the Trusted Checkout system, your watch will ship while insured for its full value. This service is free.

Selling a Watch

This is where Chrono24 makes its money. Each watch that sells through Chrono24’s website garners the company a 6.5 percent commission. So if you sell a watch for $1,000, you’ll owe $65 of it to Chrono24.

For these commissions, Chrono24 offers all of the services, guarantees, and insurances that make these purchases so attractive.

Is Chrono24 Legit?

It’s okay to question Chrono24’s legitimacy, though most of these questions are misdirected. There’s nothing inherently wrong with anything Chrono24 does. It just happens to be an easy platform for scammers to take advantage of.

Authenticity

The sale of counterfeit watches is prohibited by Chrono24, though many unscrupulous sellers have been able to get around it.

Even with pictures of papers and boxes, it’s possible to ship a fake watch to a buyer and con them out of their money, regardless of the payment system they use (like the Trusted Checkout).

Buying From a Private Seller

If a price from a private seller is too good to be true, run. There aren’t too many watch sellers that hate money, so why would a legitimate watch go for hundreds if not thousands under the market price? Probably because it’s a fake.

If you can’t pass up on a deal with a private seller, do your research to verify that the piece is legit, and ask lots and lots of questions.

Verified Dealers

Anytime you trade money for goods or services, there’s a risk involved. It’s up to you as the buyer to hedge that risk as much as possible. Before you buy any watch from a Chrono24 listing, do your research on the seller.

While “Verified Dealers” do go through a bit of a background check, it’s not nearly as comprehensive as the name implies. Check to see if your dealer has a brick and mortar location to add some validity to their brand, and verify for yourself that they have an excellent track record.

Get Your Watch Authenticated Right Away

Most importantly, have your watch verified as soon as possible. The Trusted Checkout Authenticity Guarantee is only good for 14 days.

Don’t wait until the 12th or 13th day to take a $10,000 watch for verification. You need an expert opinion right away in the event that you’re disputing such a large purchase.

Buyer Beware: Shipping Can Be an Issue

While Trusted Checkout transactions do include insured shipping, international shipping is risky. In some cases, Customs has seized items and held them for a long time, which puts the transaction and your escrow-protected money in limbo.

Many of these well-documented issues revolve around watches with straps made from crocodile or alligator leather. However, your seller must fill out the customs declaration honestly.

This is actually a big reason why Chrono24 has received some negative attention. Chrono24 simply helps facilitate the transaction.

They will not, however, get involved in Customs disputes. If you’re in the US, you can remove these concerns altogether by dealing only with domestic sellers. But if you consider the many, many transactions that Chrono24 has facilitated since 2003, you should feel confident that the deal will go well.

Final Thoughts: Would I Buy a Watch From Chrono24?

If the goal of reading this article is to find out whether I would purchase a watch from Chrono24, then the answer is most likely. My concern lies in the issues with customs. I’ve had a watch held before, and it’s an extremely frustrating experience.

However, if I found a good deal on a watch that I wanted from a US-based seller, I would consider it. I like the idea of Chrono24’s Trusted Checkout escrow account, so I would most likely opt to pay with it.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t purchase a watch through an international seller through Chrono24’s platform. There are a lot of excellent deals from some very reputable sellers. The term “shop the seller” is a staple in Chrono24-related Reddit threads for a reason, however.

As with any purchase, do your research and hedge your bets as much as possible. You’ll probably come out okay with a watch you love at a reasonable price.