How winning a luxury watch could help save the planet

uxury watches and tree planting might not seem obvious bed partners.

Brad Drake, the 34 year-old entrepreneur behind Luxury Watch Supply has tried to change that – his business plants a tree every time someone buys a ticket to enter a prize draw to win what for many would be the watch of their dreams.

How did you hit on the idea of the business?

After 14 years working in recruitment and fast approaching 30 I was in need of a change. I explored a few different app ideas, but none picked up real gusto. I came across an article in the Evening Standard on my way home one day. It was a company raffling a central London flat and I thought the idea was great.

After a few weeks of researching and understanding regulations I decided that I could do the same, but with luxury watches (a passion of mine) and that was the start of it.

How does the business work?

We source the most desirable watches in the world, set our total tickets number for the final draw raffle and push that out to our audience.

Tickets are purchased via our bespoke website and once all of the tickets are sold out we hold a draw Live on Instagram for transparency. We’re fortunate to have built up a large audience over time of more than 50,000 on Instagram.

What sort of person is typically most interested in luxury watches?

We have had over 115,000 tickets purchased over the past 2 years and what we can see is that men ages between 28-35 are most interested and more frequently buying tickets.

I want to spend £2000 on a watch. What is your top suggestion?

Stretch the budget a little further and buy the Omega Speedmaster ‘Moonwatch’. It’s a beautiful sporty looking watch that is certified by NASA as the first watch on the moon.

It has a moment that’s second to none and comes in a cool presentation box with info on the watches journey to the moon. It’s definitely one to hand down to the kids.

What can you tell me about the revenues/other financials of the business? How big could it become do you think?

In year one we transacted just under £600,000, year two we did £2.4 million and this year we believe we could get to £3.5 million.

Now we have the structure of the business up, it’s our aim to start holding multiple competitions at once.

What is the charitable side of Lux Watch?

From the very beginning we have wanted to make a difference, making dreams come true wasn’t enough.

We also wanted some kind of social impact which is why we now plant a tree for every ticket sold, it’s fairly new initiative but our aim is to plant 100,000 trees by the end of 2021, removing 7,500 tonnes of CO2 every year.

The website says you have given away £2.9m so far. To whom? How much could you end up giving away?

Our winners have been all over the world, from Singapore to Northern Scotland. We have no limits to what we can, all we can is we won’t stop till everyone in our community has won their dream watch.

How is this business different from a traditional lotto?

One of the things that our current community really love is the odds they have to win. For instance we have a competition running at the moment, the watch is valued at £24,000 & we have just 700 spaces in the final draw. In comparison to the lottery which is 1:45,000,000 it’s a no brainer.

With the transparency of our Live Draws people also get that feeling of excitement and anticipation on every comp, just imagine watching and your name comes up in bright lights. It’s so personal – people love it.