Welcome To Our New Site, Ignore The Mess…
Believe it or not, this is actually fun for me. Hunting down errors, writing redirects, fielding emails on user issues. I actually don’t mind the temporary pause to my typical day, filled with watch inspections, services, etc. While it’s a brief departure, I’m shooting to use this time as efficiently as possible. That said, I can use your help.
You Can Help…
First and foremost, if you encounter errors on the site, in any of our emails, in the tracking system, etc, please report them to us. We bug tested for quite a while, both internally and externally but something is bound to come up. Second, if you experience a page load delay, a form delay, etc, or really anything out of the ordinary, feel free to report that as well.
Why This Happened…
This upgrade was a long time coming. I actually wanted to pull the trigger on the website upgrade a couple of years ago. Life got in the way and as you all can tell from our turnaround times, we’ve been busy. Something has bothered me about te lack of functionality in our status system and I knew ultimately it needed to be put out of its misery. When I first built it, it was fully operational. Years later, after several server upgrades, CMS upgrades and most importantly, PHP upgrades, we lost a good deal of functionality as I forced to bandaid things when we had to upgrade to PHP 7.3 and later, 7.4. I only did the bare minimum because it was A LOT of code and a lot of work and it was still only going to be a temporary fix due to the quickly approaching 8.x. It simply all had to be re-done, no-doubt. So I did what anyone would do… I put it off! I kept up with security patches and used the status system in its limited, decrepit state. When it came time to upgrade the CMS again, I knew it was time to also tackle this hurdle. And here we are, 2 months after it started, live on the 1st, error handling on the 3rd, tomorrow, who knows? For now I’m excited to say that we’ve exceeded our mandate.
What Else Happened…
A lot actually. My post on September 1st outlined a good deal of what we’ve done in terms of both web and shop upgrades. We are constantly trying to evolve our methods and methodology to improve both efficiency and user experience. Without a doubt this is a tough space. Replica watches a challenge in themselves, always evolving, never improving (I laugh). A constant barrage of new models, new updates and a lackluster parts supply, coupled with some of the most unwilling participants (makers and TD’s) to better the product, better the service and support what they sell. And yet year over year we’ve made strides towards a sustainable modus operandi, building relationships and securing sources all around the globe. So while the space is tough, our model is resilient, with a sturdy foundation and an excellent plan of attack for the years ahead. Now if we could just find another technician, lol.
What’s Next…
That’s a good question. We’re obviously going to keep chugging forward. There will be further improvements to the shop in the coming months and a few surprises on our site content as well. Our prices will be going up but not much; Probably around the 1st of January 2026. We are going to start offering expedited service for a fee. We are looking to implement a different invoicing and payment system that will allow shipping speed to be determined by the customer at checkout. And there’s probably a few things I haven’t thought of. All of that and a whole lotta watch repairs!
Thank you all for your patronage and your help!
Doc @ RWR