We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Eric Wind a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Eric, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Two of the challenges when I was searching for vintage watches to add to my collection was the lack of images that depicted the condition of the watch as well as an authoritative description about the watch’s watches. I have been interested in trying to find unpolished watches since my early days as I prefer the cases with original finish and with the beveled edges that many Rolex sports models and other company’s sport models had when new back in the approximately 1950s to 1980s era. It took me many years to find the unpolished watches that I wanted to find and it was more luck than anything. Our website offers awesome vintage watches and many are unpolished. I am thrilled with the quality of the watches that we are offering and selling!

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Watches were a passion, but I never planned to make them my profession. Collecting watches and then writing about watches started as a hobby for me. I never thought I would get to do this as my vocation! We strive to treat our clients like how I would want to be treated – with personal customer service and curation. I am proud of the watches that we get to sell to our clients as well as their customer experience.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When we started Wind Vintage, we were essentially only selling vintage watches. However, we have had many clients who wanted to sell modern watches and turn the proceeds into vintage watches from us. I previously tried to wholesale modern watches to modern-focused watch dealers, but found they were buying very low and selling very high from me, so I had to pivot to offering them for sale through my website and it has been transformative for us in terms of revenue and growth for our business!

Has your business ever had a near-death moment? Would you mind sharing the story?

The early days of Covid were scary – my phone stopped ringing and my e-mail inbox was a desert. I told Christine we might need to pivot to another line of work if people were not going to be buying watches. Thankfully, after a couple weeks the market began to pick up and it was incredible to watch the growth in interest and watches for watches after that!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.windvintage.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericmwind/
• Twitter: https://x.com/ericwind

Image Credits

Wind Vintage