MEET THE BUYERS: Family Affairs in Amsterdam
How has the market changed in the last years (5 and 10 years)? In terms of the type of requests from the public but also from companies?
We noticed that rose gold was very trendy, even though we are still selling more yellow gold. As of late our clients are combining all gold colors. Our website and Instagram are very important to us, even before Covid we noticed that more and more our clients are comfortable to buy online. Therefore its important to us to make sure our webshop is up to date and we take our exposure on Instagram very seriously.
What is the biggest challenge facing the market today? and the greatest criticality of this international moment?
I am probably stating the obvious, but the biggest challenge of the market today is the fact that we are closed since December 14th and with it the insecurity in the market. Although 2020 turned out to be still a pretty good year, especially since we missed a big part of the Christmas sales. Best sellers of yesterday and today: what were and are and what do any changes tell us? We are fond of big chunky gold link bracelets, beautiful earrings and rings. Investment pieces you can wear daily with a pair of jeans but also with a dress. The trend we also like is a few stretchy bracelets, completely or partly in diamond. Beautiful bracelets, which are perfect to wear all day round. Doesn’t matter if you are at work or at home, or have to go to a party, they work for all occasions. Exactly what a modern woman of today needs!
Are luxury watches still status symbols? Do they also exist among jewels?
Yes luxury watches are still a status symbol, even though watches are not our core product. We do love to add some vintage Cartier tank watches to our collection, the former model of the Bulgari serpenti and some Rolex watches with a colored dial from the 70’s. Mainly watches we would love to wear ourselves.
Offline and online: two opposite solutions or which can be integrated? How have both of these realities changed in the last year?
In the beginning we were only selling items below EUR 500. Now we can really feel that people start buying more expensive pieces online. We can assists our clients by phone to help find a beautiful piece. It helps that they see how it looks on our model on Instagram. And of course it goes without saying, that if for some reason they want to change or return the goods, that’s no problem and we are happy to oblige.
How is your long-standing customers' proponity to purchase changing? After how long can a customer be defined as "historical"? Does this category still exist?
No, we still value the customers to be really attached to our shop. You get to know them personally and you really build up a relationship with these customers. They bring friends and family and so it is always a pleasure to see them again. We are really missing our clients at the moment, but we hope that everyone is in good health and stays safe. A historical client is hard to define, but I think it is a mutual feeling of liking each other, liking the taste of our family and the jewelry stock we have, but 1 thing is clear, we always aim to build a long lasting relationship with our customers.
Readjusting style and use of a "family jewel": a trend also due to the times? have you also noticed it among your customers?
The signet ring is still very popular and we make them completely in gold but also with the layered stones. It is a nice process with the whole family visiting and choosing the ring and stone which is on someone's wishlist. Another thing is that we produce bracelets as the ILOVEYOU bracelet, we are also able to personalize these bracelets. For example with letters of your loved one, or with letters of your loved one or with the first letters of your children alternating with hearts. Or a bracelet with dangling hearts with the letters cut out. Coins with engravement of names and birth date is also an item which is popular. A lot of clients have outdated jewelry at home, passed on from generation to generation and sadly don’t wear anymore. So together we try to re-use the piece or part of the piece to give it a modern twist. Sometimes it’s too expensive, then the best decision is to put all the gold on the scale and they choose a jewel instead, which is more contemporary and more easy to wear.
Lorenza Scalisi, Editor VO+
