The Design A Watch website is owned and operated by Rich Company, a name that has over 50 years of experience in the industry. They have offices in Southern California, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and Switzerland. Their factories are equipped with precision machinery and technology, utilized in making their quality Swiss quartz watches.
Their website carries differently-styled watches, displayed and categorized by their themes. There are themes like Snoopy or Peanuts characters, Inspirational, Military, Birthdays, Animals, Zodiac Signs and more. Currently, there are only nine watch styles on the site – Malibu, Venice, Topanga, Brentwood, Redondo, Monterey, Westwood, Newport and Belmont. Most of the styles feature polished chrome cases, leather straps and splash proof finishes. There are also others that have stainless steel cases, nylon and Velcro straps and water-resistant finishes. Prices are at $45 – $115.
Considering that the company has a vast experience in watch retail, it’s surprising that their website is not as clean and updated as other sites we’ve reviewed. The layout design of the website looks very outdated and the products are poorly categorized. Additionally, the site did not invest in a design studio to make the DIY process more interactive, but you will still be able to quickly customize the watch. Depending on the watch style, you can customize the band color, watch hand color, dial art, index art and caseback engraving .The great thing is, they have countless of dial and index art options for you to choose from.
In stock items are shipped within 3-4 days but the standard production time for a customized watch is 30 days, so order early if you need it for an occasion. Custom watches are non-returnable, except in cases of production defects or shipping damages.
Design A Watch offers a nice array of simple watches. The watch styles have good, basic designs but a lot of them lack in features. To add to that, their design studio is not very efficient because it looks very outdated. Custom watches also take quite a long time to produce and this can be a big turn off for a lot of customers.