How to Change a Watch Battery

Video Transcript

I think all jewelers want to know, “How can I be more profitable in my shop?” Well, one quick and easy way is by adding a watch battery replacement service. In this video, I’ll show you how quick and easy it is to be more profitable just by changing a battery.

Okay, so let’s talk about numbers for a second. The average price in the U.S. for a battery change is about $10. The average cost of that battery is about $1.25. So right there you’ve made a profit of $8.75. That’s an 88% profit, not too bad. So if you do five battery replacements per day, that’s $43.75 of profit. When you look at the week, you’ve made almost $219 in profit for the week.  Now, what does that mean for the year? You’ve made over $11,000 in profit, not too bad.

So you need a few tools to get started. First off, you need some sort of watch battery kit which will have all of your most popular sizes. We have two brands, which would be Energizer® and Renata®. You’ll need an orientation table or some type of casing cushion so that you don’t damage your crystal while you’re working on the watch. It’s good to have a Watch Tool Kit, which has all the popular tools. This one’s from Beco. it’s a very nice kit! Extra screwdrivers if needed. Since I’ll be working on a snap-back type case, I’m going to be using a Toggle Press. I’m using the Beco Toggle Press. It’s probably my favorite tool that I own.


So in this particular watch, it has a back that you need to pop off. Most of these watches will have a notch right here. I have a little knife right here with a casing blade. So you put the knife here. Up and it comes off. We have anti-magnetic tweezers so that we don’t do anything to the movement. Pull the battery out. Take your battery out. Put it back down in here, press it in. Case will go back on. Then I will use the case press. Line it up. It’s very important that you use the correct size by doing a fit test first. Line it up. Hold it. And that’s it. Done!

This was a fairly easy watch. It took less than two minutes. Most other watches if you have to unscrew the back or take the screws out the back, it may take 10-15 minutes. But the plus side of that is that if you do this job while your customer is walking around the store that’s an opportunity for them to buy something from your showcase. So you can use this job as an upsell for something else.

All of these tools are available on Stuller.com and for $1,000 or less, you’re in business.
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