CBJO Webinar on the Jewellery Consumer

The Jewellery Consumer, Post Pandemic

Webinar on Thursday, January 14, 2021

Harry Gordon Selfridge, the American-British retail magnate who in 1908 founded the iconic London-based department store chain Selfridges, is widely credited with first articulating the principle, the customer is always right. 

It's a maxim that still holds true, and is ever more relevant to the jewellery business as it begins to emerge from the Covid crisis. How will the experience of the pandemic and its economic and social fallout have changed consumer motivations, and what must the industry do in order to adjust?  

There is general consensus among market experts that consumers in general, and consumers of luxury products in particular, are being transformed by the Covid experience – both in terms of what drives them to make purchasing decisions, and in terms of the types of service they demand from retailers. Certain of these changes, such as the search for social value in the products they buy, may have been directly triggered by the pandemic, while others were ongoing processes accelerated by Covid, such as the increased reliance on online and Omni-channel trading and marketing.

These transformations and the strategies that the jewellery industry must adopt to address them will be the subject of this month's Jewellery Industry Voices webinar. It is entitled, The Jewellery Consumer, Post Pandemic, and will take place on Thursday, January 14, 2021. 

The expert panel that has been gathered to discuss the issue includes Anita Balchandani, a partner at McKinsey & Company in London, and the head of its consultancy for the apparel, fashion and luxury sectors in the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East; Melanie Grant, Luxury Editor for 1843 Magazine and a correspondent at The Economist; Andrew Siegel, Chief Operating Officer of the New Jersey-headquartered Hamilton Jewelers group; and Charles Bonas, CEO of the Bonas Group, a diamond tender and auction house, and a brokerage and consultancy firm for the diamond and gemstone industries. 

The webinar is sponsored by the Natural Diamond Council, which is also the Diamond Sponsor of Jewellery Industry Voices Season 2. NDC CEO David Kellie will welcome webinar participants, together with Gaetano Cavalieri, CIBJO President. The webinar will be co-moderated by Edward Johnson and Steven Benson.