Timeless Elegance: A Curated Review of the Top 10 Luxury Watch Websites 2023
When it comes to luxury watches, the words elegant, professional, and timeless may come to mind. If you’re a client looking to purchase a statement timepiece, you’d naturally expect the watch website to encompass all of those things too. But, are the most prominent luxury watch brands meeting that expectation on their websites?
The KIJO team has reviewed the 10 most iconic, luxury watch websites – from Omega to Breitling to Rolex. We’ve combed through and analysed the web pages of the most notorious luxury watch brands and we’ve assessed everything from their impact, messaging, user experience (UX), user journey, their uniqueness and memorability.
Which Luxury Watch Websites Did KIJO Review?
KIJO has reviewed 10 luxury watch websites:-
- Rolex
- Patek Philippe
- Audemars Piguet
- Omega
- IWC Schaffhausen
- Jaeger-LeCoultre
- Breitling
- Hublot
- Panerai
- Vacheron Constantin
KIJO enormously respect and appreciate the prestige of these watchmakers. Our reviews simply aim to deliver a clear idea of what to expect from these luxury watch websites, and ultimately uncover what makes an exceptional watch website overall.
Our KIJO review methodology is to provide a fair reflection of the luxury watch website user experience, help you understand clearly how various watchmaker brands could improve, and we always ensure our reviews are comparable, fair and clear.
Each luxury watch website has been marked out of 50 over 5 categories: Impact, Key Messaging, User Experience (UX), User Journey and Memorability.
KIJO’s Luxury Watch Website Reviews
Rolex
Reviewed by Jordan Thompson – Co-Founder of KIJO
Impact – 8/10
Key Messaging – 7/10
UX – 7/10
User Journey – 6/10
Memorability – 8/10
Total – 36/50
“Rolex’s UX is arguably very strong. It has thorough and tailored animation and is ultimately an engaging experience. The side-scrolling mega menu is visually interesting, but could be considered confusing for the user. In my opinion, this would be an area of improvement to look at if we’re wanting to enhance and develop the user journey.”
Patek Philippe
Reviewed by Jordan Thompson – Co-Founder of KIJO
Impact – 5/10
Key Messaging – 4/10
UX – 4/10
User Journey – 5/10
Memorability – 4/10
Total – 22/50
“Overall, the Patek Philippe watch website’s key messaging doesn’t feel clear and the tone of the site generally feels dated and tired; for example, there weren’t any interaction or engagement features. The top bar isn’t attractive and the cookie notification dominates the attention of the user during the page load. These would be my main starting points in terms of improving this luxury watch website.”
Audemars Piguet
Reviewed by Jordan Thompson – Co-Founder of KIJO
Impact – 8/10
Key Messaging – 7/10
UX – 6/10
User Journeys – 5/10
Memorability – 7/10
Total: 33/50“On loading, there’s a very impactful full-screen video that’s enticing and provides promise for the Audemars Piguet website experience. The homepage is then easy-to-follow and the headings are clear. However, the site generally lacks animation and engagement and the main navigation is confusing. This would be something I’d be inclined to address in order to boost this luxury watch website’s overall UX.”
Omega Website
Reviewed by Jordan Thompson – Co-Founder of KIJO
Impact – 7/10
Key Messaging – 7/10
UX – 6/10
User Journeys – 6/10
Memorability – 7/10
Total: 33/50
“This luxury watch website initially highlights its product well – it’s vibrant and the hero is clear. I also thought the key messaging was of good standard. Unfortunately, the hamburger and main menu links are quite confusing and the Omega site overall lacks engagement, offering little in terms of imaginative animation.”
IWC Schaffhausen
Reviewed by Jordan Thompson – Co-Founder of KIJO
Impact – 6/10
Key Messaging – 6/10
UX – 6/10
User Journeys – 6.5/10
Memorability – 6/10
Total: 30.5/50
“The IWC Schaffhausen website is a pretty basic site and so unfortunately, it’s arguably forgettable. Whilst the homepage is highlighting the product in an obvious way, a simple solution to promote impact and UX would be turning the static header image into a video. In my opinion, this would help draw the user in. The menu is simple in structure, but there’s an opportunity to combine the hamburger and mega menu that’s been noticeably missed.”
Jaeger-LeCoultre
Reviewed by Jordan Thompson – Co-Founder of KIJO
Impact – 8/10
Key Messaging – 7/10
UX – 7/10
User Journeys – 7/10
Memorability – 7/10
Total: 36/50
“Jaeger-LeCoultre’s luxury watch website is on good track. It has an impactful full screen video on the homepage, clear key messaging of each brand and whilst there’s low use of animation, there’s generally a good use of full height and width video which is engaging. The menu is simple and clear, but I was struck by the curious choice to have ‘News’ as the first item on it.”
Breitling
Reviewed by Jordan Thompson – Co-Founder of KIJO
Impact – 5/10
Key Messaging – 5/10
UX – 5/10
User Journeys – 5/10
Memorability – 4/10
Total: 24/50
“For a luxury watch brand like Breitling, you’d expect a complementary luxurious website. Unfortunately, the header on the site could be considered aesthetically cheap and the site feels very basic overall. There’s no hamburger menu resulting in overly simple navigation which contributes to a somewhat boring user experience.”
Hublot
Reviewed by Jordan Thompson – Co-Founder of KIJO
Impact – 7.5/10
Key Messaging – 6/10
UX – 7/10
User Journeys – 6/10
Memorability – 8/10
Total: 34.5/50
“Hublot’s luxury watch website has got a lot of things right; clear typography,the product stands out and its header is colourful and impactful. The site’s microcopy is functional and clear too. There’s arguable room for improvement in terms of navigation – for example, there’s no hamburger menu and there are a lot of layers and clicks required to get to a watch’s single page. However, its impact and memorability really do stand out.”
Panerai
Reviewed by Danny Findon-Kent – UI/UX Designer
Impact – 5/10
Key Messaging – 2/10
UX – 4/10
User Journeys – 4/10
Memorability – 2/10
Total: 17/50
“Initially, Panerai offers bold, high-impact imagery highlighting the different types of watches they make. However, I noted that the image quality is inconsistent across the site and that the photoshopped elements are of an average standard. Typography is blurred in places, navigation feels cramped and key messaging is very limited. That said, there are good UX elements when it comes to the shopping experience and the product page layout. Unfortunately though, I discovered some broken links and sections, which left a negative impression overall.”
Vacheron Constantin
Reviewed by Danny Findon-Kent – UI/UX Designer
Impact – 8/10
Key Messaging – 10/10
UX – 9/10
User Journeys – 9/10
Memorability – 9/10
Total: 45/50
“This luxury watch website really impressed me. It’s a very clean and easy-to-use site with high-quality product imagery and a luxury gold, black and white colour palette used throughout. Its branding and messaging is consistent and direct with strong calls to action (CTAs) and the written content is very engaging. A highlight for me was the interactive product image slider that worked seamlessly. The typeface could be more luxurious and the image hovers could be used throughout the site as these were a nice touch. The site could also include some entrance animations too. Overall though, I would say that Vacheron Constantin offers a truly luxurious website design and is generally in line with the brand’s reputation.”
Why Some Luxury Watch Websites Performed Better Than Others
These ten reviews aimed to compare what was working and what wasn’t on these luxury watch websites. Through analysing and assessing each site, it was clear to the KIJO team that certain sites were promoting themselves better than others.
Here are the overall scores in descending order:
- Vacheron Constantin 45/50
- Jaeger-LeCoultre 36/50
- Rolex 36/50
- Hublot 34.5/50
- Audemars Piguet 33/50
- Omega 33/50
- IWC Schaffhausen 30/50
- Breitling 24/50
- Patek Philippe 22/50
- Panerai 17/50
Vacheron Constantin was KIJO’s highest scoring luxury watch website. It performed so well in our review because this site clearly understands its target audience, it has prioritised the user experience and user journey, and it’s managed to remain easy-to-use whilst being visually and interactively memorable. Some key features that stood out to KIJO include:
- Consistent use of strong, yet subtle branding
- A unique navigation with hover-overs making it very easy to navigate
- Great, effective content throughout the site
- Clear, distinctive layout on both the home and product pages
Panerai and Patek Philippe’s sites scored less favourably in our evaluations. These luxury watch brands frequently indicated things that a website design should aim to avoid:
- Inconsistent image quality, including blurry logos
- Invasive cookie-use notifications
- Too much negative space
- Buggy operation and broken links
- Lack of key messaging
Luxury watchmakers are in a highly competitive market so branding, reputation and product quality is everything. A luxury watch brand’s online presence needs to clearly show that they understand this customer expectation and are ready to meet it.
From our reviews, it’s clear that a good luxury watch website should provide relevant and enticing information, and as well as detailing its products and services, it should explain the brand’s history, its vision, and its values in a concise but visually stunning way. In KIJO’s opinion, there’s room for improvement across all of these sites particularly if they want to maintain the high reputation of their brands in this demanding digital age.
Posted on by Kirk Thompson