The Diamond Conference 2018 “The Influence of Diamonds and Style”

When I was asked to join the panel.. I know fashion design and retail but what do I know of diamonds……… As a fashion retailer, we have work with fashion product attributes  You cannot just design a dress or a collection that just looks beautiful; somebody must want to buy it and keep coming back to buy So our product attributes are colour, cut and fabric = price/value Keep adding newness and looking for inspiration

What we did with American Swiss & Sterns It reminded me of when I ran Foschini with American Swiss and Sterns concession store within a store…….. Trying to determine where the opportunity lay and determine the affordability levels ASJ -If your brand is pricey, how do really added value to the customer (shopfit was more expensive, sales associates were better trained and tried to create an upmarket experience) Sterns - So if position where price is key, don’t make your brand positioning look cheap (shopfit was not cheap; but cheaper, sales assoc were trained to drive basket size) Still an emotive buy, driven by an occasion

As trade got tougher Trading got tougher, we sold less diamonds and gold jewellery So what did we do…… Tried to sell cubic zirconia, investigated man-made, introduced cheaper gold Introduced more silver and fashion jewellery, added more value to existing product and sold less but at higher prices Combined costume with fine jewellery and developed a range of fashion jewellery which was more affordable and more on trend Sounds easy but it was difficult to let go of our heritage and the educate the customer to move across “Fashion is making the customer look and feel more special when purchasing a garment”