Watch this space!

Two Lancashire businessmen have joined forces with horological ventures they believe will ‘tick’ all the boxes. Entrepreneurs and friends Jonathan Barker and Martyn Bleasdale have set up Champ Digital Ltd to host online watch related e-commerce websites. The pair worked together in Jonathan’s previous business The WATCH Lab which was based in Fulwood, Preston.

Starting in 2000 located in Liverpool City Centre, Jonathan’s vision with his first business The WATCH Lab was to turn the watch repair industry on its head by presenting this art in a clinical manner by highly trained Technicians wearing labcoats. Jonathan explained, ‘rather than carrying our watch repairs in the back of the shop as the jewellers did, we put our repair benches and tools in the front of the store and in view of the public.’

The WATCH Lab grew and in 2004 Martyn Bleasdale joined the team. With a wealth of experience in all things digital and online, Martyn’s role was to help the expansion and dominate the world of watch repairs online. In 2016 with a chain of 16 shopping centre branches nationwide, the company was sold to Watches Of Switzerland Group.

Champ Digital Ltd was born in 2019 with Martyn and Jonathan as Directors. Their first e-commerce business is Watch Strap Style https://www.watchstrapstyle.com/ This is what it says on the tin, and sells replacement watch straps for both traditional and smartwatches.

Champs second website sells watch winders and is called Luxury Watch Winders https://www.luxurywatchwinders.com/ Watch Winders are boxes for keeping automatic watches running. According to Jonathan, they are however much more than that.

‘Watch winders are essential pieces of equipment that all automatic watch owners should own. In my decades of experience working with watches and watchmakers, a watch winder keeps a watch running off your wrist yes. It does, however, much more than that. A quality watch winder winds the automatic timepiece in sessions of clockwise motion, anti-clockwise and crucially allows periods of rest. In doing so internal watch components are lubricated, kept in tip-top condition and importantly costly service intervals are delayed. If you have an expensive automatic watch, you need a decent watch winder.’

Under normal circumstances, Jonathan and Martyn enjoy getting together out of work too. Martyn lives in Penwortham with his wife and little boy. Jonathan lives in Lytham with his two children. As we all are, they are looking forward to post Covid and some sort of normality.