Research shows that students working part-time in off-licences often know more about the beers and wine they are selling than retail staff working in the average jewellers know about the gems and other products they are selling. It’s more than students just liking a drink! You’ve got to wonder why this is so. You might suppose that the students working in off-licences already know a lot about the drinks they are selling because it’s well known that students can be very passionate about drinking. Joking aside, students working in off-licences are hardly going to be experienced sommeliers so there must be something else at play here. They want to give their customers confidence. The average consumer is still very intimidated when it comes to choosing a bottle of wine. If …

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Did you find yourself selling from your existing jewellery collections or did you find yourself increasingly being asked for customised or bespoke jewellery pieces? With a slight shift in luxury and consumer’s approach to buying it, is there an expectation by our customers for bespoke pieces? …

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Recently, the weather in Europe has been quite cold. For many, the cold weather is bad news; however, if you have a small business, the cold just may work to your advantage. If you are able to open your shop, log on to your website or otherwise come in to work, the benefits are yours for the taking. Increase customer loyalty. First, if you are able to get out and about in the bad weather, then chances are that many of your customers are also able to get out on the road as well. This means that you have the advantage of increasing customer loyalty by being available when your customers need you the most. In addition, you may also attract new customers who are not able to make it …

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Do you ever find yourself in a buying situation where you are looking for some good advice on something but you feel better qualified than the person you are talking to? Think about it. You went to buy a TV and a sales assistant comes along, you ask them for information on a product and they say confidently “sure I know about this” and they then proceed to read you information off of the box of the product or the big labels they put on the display model. You stand there and think to yourself – what does this guy take me for? Now take this situation one level up and instead of buying, you are supplying. Your the supplier of a product and your being told by your customer …

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I was lucky enough to get to the second week of the Goldmiths’ Fair in London last week and again I was blown away by the quality, diversity and creativity on display there. It really got me thinking about our industry and how predictable it has become on one side and how innovative it is on the other. With my office based in London’s Hatton Garden, I often feel quite uninspired about the trade. Shop after shop selling real crap, with the exception of a few. The opportunity to turn this into a ‘Premier’ jewellery shopping area is repidly slipping away. Imagine a world where all the shops on Hatton Garden were like a big version of Goldsmiths’ Fair. Every shop run by the jeweller creating wonderful pieces, silversmiths getting …

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I went to week one of goldsmiths’ fair with a very fresh perspective.  With everything  that’s been going on with the economy and the impact it has had on luxury and jewelley, I now see events like goldsmiths’ along with their exhibitors as representing the future of the industry. When you first walk in to the hall you get struck by a sense of history. The fact that they still have uniformed commissionaires sets the tone of the whole event. Very formal and grand, well on the outside anyway.  Those very grand surroundings of the hall are quickly put into sharp contrast by the very contemporary designs on show. Firstly there is the silversmithing. If you are not familiar with the kind of work they show there, forget the stuffy dated …

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I recently read an interesting discussion thread on LinkedIn (which I recommend you join by the way) in which people were answering the simple question: What is branding? It was interesting to see the range of answers. They touched on the issues around price, design and availability. Others seemed to think it was generated from the customers rather than the organisation. Some seemed to suggest that it was a much more emotional connection with people’s heart. Some talk about adding value to your product and how it differentiates you from your competitors. Others see it as something that will you will pay you a premium for, while other questioned why you’d ever want to do it with something cheap (I guess Asda, Wall Mart, Tesco et al have also missed …

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The family jeweller is being attacked by the internet. – Nonsense! I once heard someone say if it’s raining, don’t complain, go out and buy an umbrella!’ In most cases the internet has been the scapegoat for a business that just lacks vision and passion. If it wasn’t this, then it would have been something else. What the internet has done is present opportunities and made people think about how they can move their businesses forward. When they haven’t been able to come up with the answer, that’s when they panic and the business goes into free fall. Really it couldn’t be simpler to get customers though the door, even during difficult times, but it takes effort, patience, some planning and a little courage. Sometimes you need to take an …

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With the recession still biting, people shopping for anything ‘luxury’ want to rely more and more on one person for one thing.  They want a specialist, an expert they can call on for advice on that topic or help with a purchase. The opposite of that would be the person who shops for price and uses the internet find a product at the cheapest price.  Now they are a customer for some retailers, but anyone concerned with selling anything that is beyond the value of the sum of its parts they are not our ideal customer.  If you are selling cheap Hong Kong or Chinese jewellery, or anything else in that style for that matter, good luck to you.  If however you are building a relationship with your customers, either …

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Recently I got in to a debate about LVMH taking Tony Balir on its board to help its business especially in India.  http://bit.ly/6CRqHD To me that spelt a departure of the true spirit of what luxury should be. My argument was as follows, if  Mr Blair’s alignment with LVMH was to make the brand (of both of them) greater. To me, it had the opposite effect I would argue that it’s not gravitas that makes luxury respectable, it is understatement and scarcity that are essential. In fact I would go so far as to say that Tony Blair working for (not representing – he is being paid after all) LVMH, is everything that is wrong with luxury and politics for that matter. Sure LVMH has got amazing brands, brands that …

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