So after some crazy experiment, we have finally found a home for it!  Check it out!

When you check in at our Times Circle Boutique location, you can unlock the 20% Off discount for your purchase at the store!

The brand new, 2012 Citizen Spring Collection has arrived at Times Circle. Aside from a few of the models that are slated to be released in late Spring, most of the gorgeous 2012 Citizen watches are available at our stores now.

Just a taste of what’s in this collection:

Eco-Drive Promaster Depth Meter Chronograph BJ2118-09E

Depth Display to 125 Feet. Maximum Depth Memory. One-Way Rotating Elapsed-Time Bezel. 50 Minute Chronograph. 12/24 Hour Time. Power Reserve Indicator. Screw-Back Case and Screw-Down Crown. Non-Reflective Crystal.

Eco-Drive Nighthawk CA0290-51E

1/5 Second Chronograph Measures up to 60 Mintues. 12/24 Hour Time. Screw-back case and Screw-down crown.

Eco-Drive Perpetual Calendar BL5405-59E

1/20 Second Chronograph Measures up to 60 Minutes. 12/24 Hour Time. Dual Time. Alarm. Rotating Inner Dial Ring. Screw-Back Case.

The main issue happens with the Paypal Express Checkout option, where the proper message does not show up after a successful order is placed by the customers. Instead, an error message “Order cannot be placed.” would show up on the page, and this leads to tons of confusion as the payment is actually processed by Paypal, while the customers are led to believe that the transactions haven’t gone through.

Another side effect of this issue is that the transactions do not show up on our customer’s transaction history page.

We hope to solve this issue ASAP, so please bear with us in the mean time.

To confirm that you have in fact made a successful purchase at our online watch store, please check your email to see if you have received an order confirmation email from us or Paypal.

You can also ignore the “Order cannot be placed.” message if it appears after you have placed the order. If you have any concern or question about your order, feel free to contact us via the contact us form or by phone.

Once again, we would like to apologize for the inconvenience.

Not only did we see a surge of activities at our stores as the Christmas holiday and the year came to a close, we also managed to launch our brand new online watch store one week before the new year! To everyone’s surprise, traffic started to trickle in and by the end of the week, the traffic had already gone up more than three folds.

Since this is our very first stab at running our stores on the world wide web, we didn’t really have much expectation in terms of traffic, sales and software issues. When we saw the first (real) order notification on the fifth day of our launch, we were somewhat stunned and kind of lost for a second. An order for a Citizen AT4025-01E on the fifth day! Thank you Google, Googlebot worked overtime during the holidays! In fact, we later found out that there were actually two more orders made before that “official” first one, but we I forgot to turn off the sandbox mode for Paypal, and the orders never made it through the system.

As the days passed by, traffic, inquiries and orders started to increase steadily. We also started to see trends from the traffic numbers and user behaviors, and our online strategy is going to get modified accordingly in the near future. It definitely wasn’t the smoothest start, but it has already surpassed our initial expectation.  We are still in the process of uploading our products into the system, so if you don’t see your favorite brand on our site yet? Don’t freak out, it will be there soon.

Anyway, that was just a quick update for you guys. 2 weeks down, and many more to come!

Some of us love Foursquare, and we kind of want to experiment to see how effective it is in a small Foursquare market like Toronto Markham. We have been running a Foursquare campaign for some time now, but so far we have yet to get any conversion from it. In fact, the check-in rate is quite low/stale, but it’s not really a surprise to some of us since a)Markham doesn’t really have many 4sq users, b)many of the venues(especially the ones in the Chinese malls) have wrong/no information since some of the stores don’t display their names, and these things really discourage users from checking into the stores.

Nevertheless, we have no fear. We are going to test this location based marketing tactic out and see if we will actually get anything out of it. It doesn’t cost us a dime to run these campaigns anyway!  Basically, our campaign offers anyone who check in at Times Circle Boutique in Markham’s Pacific Mall a 20% off discount their purchase.  This is a relatively good deal and it takes little to no effort to earn the special as long as you are on Foursquare.

We are going to stick the promo sign somewhere and see if it actually works as intended.

Edited:

I just realized the promo has stopped running since Jan 1, time to update the promo period. :p

We are glad that it’s finally up-and-running, and that the time and effort we spent in the past few months have not been wasted. Our initial projection for the site launch was late October, but due to various reasons we had to go back to the drawing back and start from square one again. So it does feel like a miracle that we could actually launch the site before X’mas (literally), thought it’s a bit of a disappointment that we couldn’t make it happen before the shopping season.

Currently, our site is still quite “empty”, as we are slowly importing our inventory to the system. The top navigation do give you a sense of the brands we will be offering on the website in the near future. Having said that, there may be some brands that we may not be able to offer online due to manufacturer restrictions, but you can always give us a call to make the order.

On the category pages, you will be able to sort the items by their characteristics, such as strap material, case material, price, etc. You can also add the items to your personal wishlist, or compare a few items side by side to see which one(s) you like the most.

Please give the site a ride, and let us know what you think and how we can improve to give you a better shopping experience!

Last but not the least, Merry Christmas to everyone!

Another year, another great start to a new season for Steven Stamkos (25GP, 16G, 11A), although the Lightnings have not been enjoying the same kind of success as he is.  Stamkos, one of the most prolific pure snipers in the league, has slowly but surely grabbed the baton from the aging vets of the likes of Lecavalier and St. Louis and carry the team on his back.  With his ever-growing popularity, it’s only appropriate that Tissot brings back one of their most popular ambassadors for the third year in a row with a brand new 2012 Limited Edition Steven Stamkos T-Sport Chronograph watch.

This 2012 Tissot Steven Stamkos limited edition watch has a very metallic feel to the design compared to the 2011 edition.  It comes with a new stainless steel bezel and a silver dial with an inner blue circle.  The Arabic numerals and indices look very similar to the ones on the Lightning’s jersey, and the design for the hands remain unchanged.  Along with his name, a big 91 is printed on the back of the watch.  Personally, I think the 2012 edition looks alot hotter than the 2011 edition.

Once again, this 2012 Tissot Steven Stamkos watch is limited to only 910 pieces worldwide, and each watch has its individual number engraved into the back of the case.  Tissot’s MSRP for this watch is CA$650, and you can bet this puppy will be a hot commodity when it becomes available.

When will it be available you ask?  Tissot has told us that it will be available in December, and you will be able to get them at any of our Times Circle stores in Markham – the same city where Stamkos grew up in.

You will also be able to preorder the watch on our site when our brand new site is launched a little bit later this month.  In the meantime, if you are interested in this watch, feel free to shoot us an email at info[at]timescircle[dot]ca or simply call us at (905) 604-3199.

Update:

Here’s the full spec of the watch:

• Model – PRS 200 (STEVEN STAMKOS 2012)
• Model Number – T067.417.11.037.00
• Collection – T-Sport
• Size – Gent
• Case Material – Stainless Steel
• Glass Material – Sapphire Crystal
• Dial Colour – Silver
• Dial Type – Arabic/Index
• Bracelet Material – Stainless Steel
• Bracelet Colour – Grey
• Water Resistance – 20 BAR (200 M)
• Movement Caliber – G10.211
• Movement Type – Quartz
• Case Size – 42mm
• Weight – 159g

Image by Times Circle

If you have no clue who we are and are planning to close the tab, stop!  Stay here for a couple more minutes and let me give you a very brief introduction.

Times Circle is an authorized dealer of many European and Japanese designer watch brands, including Longines, Tissot, Swatch, Seiko, Citizen, Fendi and other well known brands.  We have been in business for over 10 years and have expanded to 3 locations in Markham, Ontario, Canada.

In the beginning of 2011, we finally decided to take the business one step further and explored this crazy thing called the Internet.  Yes, we know, it’s about time, but this steady approach is also one reason why we have slowly, but surely established our reputation as one of the most trustworthy watch retailers in the Greater Toronto Area.

Our main watch site isn’t quite ready to be shown to the world just yet, but over the next couple of months, we will gradually reveal the new look of our redesigned website along with awesome features and great promotions.  So stay tuned and come back often!

Last but not least, here’s a couple of short clips of our new commercials for Citizen’s Eco-Drive watches that are being aired on Fairchild TV starting this week.  The first commercial features New York Giant’s Eli Manning, and the second one features LPGA golfer Paula Creamer.

The men’s watch is called Perpetual Chrono AT (AT4004-52E) and the lady’s watch is called Regent (EW1824-57D $525).  You can get both of them at one of our retail stores in Pacific Mall and First Markham Place.