About
Watch Straps Australia is a Perth-based specialist in traditional watch straps: NATO, leather, Zulu, rubber and silicone straps for mechanical and everyday watches. No smartwatch bands, no everything-store catalogue. We've been at this since 2014, when the range was eight NATO straps and the packing table was a spare desk. Today we stock over 1,000 straps in our own Perth warehouse, and we've stayed deliberately narrow: traditional straps, in every common lug width, in materials we'd wear ourselves.
The part we're proudest of is the StrapFinder. Tell it your watch brand and model and it tells you the exact lug width and shows you only the straps that fit, so you're not measuring with a ruler and hoping. It's the tool we wished existed when we started.
Everything ships from Perth. Order before 11am on a weekday and your order is dispatched the same day. Questions go to a real person, usually Brad, who actually knows the stock. If a strap isn't right, returns are hassle-free. More than 10,500 customers have bought from us, and we're rated 5 out of 5 across 500-plus Google reviews. Australian owned, Australian stocked, Australian dispatched.
Hi, I'm Brad, and I'm the owner of watchstraps.com.au.
I'm a web designer, watch enthusiast, and have been selling NATO watch straps online since 2014.
If you have any questions or queries please send me an email and I'll get back to you.
Our Story
It was the summer of 2014, and I'd just picked up a my first "good" watch - an Omega speedmaster professional.
This kicked off a unhealthy obsession with watches, and I soon picked up my two other favorites (a Seiko skx700 and Steinhardt Nav B-Uhr 44 fleiger) amongst many, many others.
I would spend hours browsing the watchuseek forums, and following /r/watches on reddit, and noticed how many watches looked great on NATO's.
NATO straps were not only becoming extremely popular for "hardcore" watch enthusiasts, but also in the mainstream with fashion brands such as The Horse, MVMT and Daniel Wellington becoming extremely popular.
After looking to purchase up a few NATO Straps for myself, I noticed a lack of local Australian suppliers and was concerned about putting my $4k baby on a cheap glued, tacky $4 strap.
That aside, I purchased from an international supplier, and they were ok, but there was definitely room for improvement.
Having a web design and marketing background I started researching the viability of setting up a website and selling them for myself.
The Australian demand was obvious, and I started contacting manufacturing partners, and after months of reviewing samples and ensuring the quality was up to standard, I launched watchstraps.com.au (originally natostraps.com.au).
I kicked off with a range of 8 straps, in mostly 18mm and 20mm sizes, and sales in the first year exceeded expectations.
In 2016, to streamline the order fulfilment process I paired up with a logistics company to handle our warehousing and shipping, which has allowed me to focus on marketing and customer service.
The range has now expanded to 111 diferent products (and growing!), and we've now had over 3,000 orders since we started in 2014
What's next for NATO Straps Australia?
We'd love to set up multiple warehouses in the eastern states to speed up delivery times, and we are looking and releasing new colours more often, especially for the female market.
