UK craftsmanship tops IJL Christmas buying survey results
December 2015 – This year, International Jewellery London (IJL) in conjunction with Domino Jewellery, commissioned the first IJL Christmas buying trends survey of UK jewellery retailers.
Of the key findings, the one trend that stood out is the importance of UK craftsmanship – with 80% of respondents stating that UK craftsmanship is an important factor when purchasing precious jewellery to stock in-store.
The survey of retailers drawn from independent, online and multiple outlets, looked at not only the importance of UK craftsmanship, the priorities in selecting Christmas lines and the most popular Christmas products, but also the strongest performing price points, and whether or not Christmas buying habits have changed in the last five years and what impact this has had on business.
IJL
Event Director, Sam Willoughby, comments: “This industry survey provides an interesting insight into Christmas buying trends and highlights the importance of design and craftsmanship, as well as price point. All of which help retailers stand out in the marketplace and capture the attention of the busy Christmas shopper – and ensure the tills are ringing!”
For Andrew Sollitt, Sales and Marketing Director at Domino the survey has provided a useful endorsement for his company’s most recent and ongoing marketing campaign.
He added: “We were truly delighted to see the results of the IJL survey as its findings strongly underline the importance of UK manufacturing heritage and our ‘Created & Crafted’ campaign flags our UK production capabilities whilst also focusing on the ‘Design & Detail’ of our products and the attention we pay to creating unique and fashionable contemporary jewellery.
It would seem that the retailers who were surveyed and their customers also share these important values.”
Purchasing Priorities
When choosing new Christmas lines, ‘how interesting the design is’ was the highest scoring amongst respondents, followed by ‘how unique the piece is’ (only they will stock it), ‘how ‘on trend’ the piece is’ and ‘how classic the piece is.’Christmas Product Choices
Pendants are the products which retailers most focus on at Christmas, followed closely by earrings, rings and necklaces in descending order – with wrist wear the least popular.
Price point
Not surprisingly, price-point is another major factor when purchasing Christmas lines – with 98% of respondents surveyed stating that it is the most important factor in selecting Christmas lines, with a further 75% saying the strongest performing price points fall into the less than £500 category. However, a healthy 11.5% state that up to £2,000 performs most strongly at Christmas with 9.6% claiming £1,000 and 3.8% – £1,500.
Changes in buying habits
62% of respondents claim that their Christmas buying habits have changed over the last five years. The range carried was cited by 67% as the most important change that has impacted on their business, with the price point considered nearly as important by 56.7%. Use of POS material was scored as 13.3%.
Surprise! Surprise!
And when it comes to the consumer – it’s all about the surprise. When questioned about whether jewellery was bought as a surprise gift or whether the recipient had some involvement in the selection of the piece, well over half of respondents at 57% said gifts were purchased as a surprise, with 28.6% of pieces requested by the recipient in advance but purchased separately.
And with only just 8.2% chosen and bought with the recipient.
