Multi-SKU Holiday Watch Program for a Spanish Distributor

Client Background

A wholesale watch distributor based just outside Madrid, supplying roughly 40 independent retail stores across central Spain. Unlike KODA's boutique brand clients, this distributor doesn't sell under a single label — they curate and private-label several watch lines at different price points to match the range of shops they serve, from small-town jewelers to shopping-mall kiosks. For the 2025 Christmas season, they wanted three private-label SKUs at three price tiers — an entry quartz gift watch, a mid-range stainless steel dress watch, and a premium automatic model — so their retail partners could stock a full gifting range from a single buying trip. Total order: 2,400 units across the three SKUs. The distributor's sales cycle runs on a hard external deadline: Spanish retailers set up Christmas gift displays by mid-November, and a distributor who misses that window loses shelf space to competitors for the whole season, not just that one order.

Project Requirements

Warehouse delivery deadline: November 15, non-negotiable — confirmed twice during quoting, since a late shipment wouldn't just delay revenue, it would forfeit the shelf space entirely until the following year. Specs across the three SKUs: entry model with quartz movement, mid-range model in 316L stainless steel, and a premium model built around an automatic movement with visible power reserve as an in-store selling point. QC standard: AQL 1.5 sampling was acceptable for the entry and mid-range SKUs, but the premium automatic model required 100% functional testing, given both its higher retail price and the distributor's own no-return policy with its retail partners. Packaging: three distinct presentation boxes matching each price tier, since retailers display the boxes directly on their counters.

Challenge & Solution

At week 6 of an 11-week production schedule, KODA's QC team ran power reserve tests on the first batch of the premium automatic SKU and found a 6% failure rate — movements dropping below the promised 38-hour reserve after a full wind, against an internal acceptance threshold of 1.5%. Tracing the defect back through incoming inspection records pointed to a single batch of movements from KODA's subcontractor, delivered three weeks earlier.

With five weeks left before the November 15 deadline, a full movement replacement across the entire premium SKU run would need at least three more weeks for sourcing, re-fitting, and re-testing — pushing final delivery past the distributor's hard cutoff and threatening not just that SKU but the two clean SKUs, since the client had asked for one consolidated shipment.

KODA's production team weighed two options. Option A: hold the full shipment and delay all three SKUs by three weeks to guarantee a fully verified batch — safe on quality, but certain to miss the shelf-stocking window entirely. Option B: split the shipment — ship the two unaffected SKUs on schedule, and for the premium SKU, switch from AQL sampling to 100% manual inspection on the existing batch, sorting out and shipping every movement that already passed reserve testing, while the subcontractor rushed a clean replacement batch for the remainder.

KODA proposed Option B and absorbed the cost of the extra full inspection labor — roughly 320 additional labor-hours — on its own side rather than the client's, since the defect originated in KODA's supply chain, not the client's specification. The distributor's buyer agreed, on condition that KODA report daily inspection pass rates for the remaining two weeks so retail delivery dates could be tracked SKU by SKU.

Delivery & Results

The two unaffected SKUs — 1,600 units — reached the distributor's Madrid-area warehouse on November 12, three days ahead of deadline. The premium automatic SKU shipped in two batches: 480 pre-inspected units on November 14, and the remaining 320 units, built from the subcontractor's replacement movements, arrived November 24 — nine days after the rest — with a final defect rate of 0.4% across the full run. The distributor absorbed the short delay by prioritizing its largest retail accounts for the premium SKU first and holding smaller orders for the second wave, which shopkeepers accepted given advance notice.

Two weeks after the season closed, the distributor's buyer emailed KODA asking to lock in production slots for spring 2026 — not just a reorder of the same three SKUs, but a request to bring a second retail chain, one they had recently signed in northern Spain, under the same private-label program.