First Jewelry: A marketing and merchandising machine cultivating a niche

by charlene_voisin | December 1, 2014 9:00 am

By Jacquie De Almeida

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On the books, Neil Travis is First Jewelry’s president and chief executive officer (CEO), but if you ask him what his role is, he’s likely to tell you CIO—chief idea officer.

And that’s just how he wants it.

“I’m at a different time in my life,” Travis reflects. “I’m not looking to build what I had before; I’m looking to have a lot more fun in the business and to form relationships with clients that are meaningful beyond shipping them products and getting paid for them.”

The ‘before’ he’s referring to is A & A Jewellers, which at its peak was one of Canada’s largest manufacturers of fine jewellery with its 500-plus employees and 40,000-sf Toronto facility.

That was in the early 1990s when Travis was co-owner of the $100-million business. By the 2000s, however, times had changed; it was becoming tougher to manufacture in North America, not to mention manoeuvring higher gold prices and a softer economy. The effects were devastating.

Travis and his partner, Aubrey Sugar, liquidated the company. Retaining the intellectual property he had developed over the years, Travis stayed in the business, working with retailers who continued to order the products and programs he had developed under A & A.

“It was a very difficult time,” recalls Travis of the period following A & A’s bankruptcy. “Then the recession hit in 2007/2008 and the companies through which I was distributing my products and intellectual property also pulled back. That’s why I reinvented First Jewelry in 2009.”

He uses the term ‘reinvented,’ as First Jewelry was a subsidiary of A & A that focused on independent North American retailers. Today, it’s a marketing and merchandising company offering bead lines Persona and PersonaGirl; My First Diamond, a collection of silver and diamond jewellery for tweens; Currency for the men’s jewellery market; and Teelux, a line of golf-inspired silver and pearl jewellery.

The venture allows Travis to flex his marketing and merchandising muscles, which at one point helped bring A & A to the forefront of Canada’s jewellery scene. In its heyday, Eaton’s department stores carried little else in its showcases that did not come from A & A. But rather than focusing on mass merchants this time, Travis was going after independents.

“I saw an opportunity to bring specialty brands to retailers to fill niche markets that weren’t being offered to consumers or offered in a way that would make it easy and profitable for them to sell,” he explains. “Merchandising is the key element [in First Jewelry] in that we not only want to design product, but we want to market it in the most effective way so jewellers can easily sell it.”

Bead wars

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Those merchandising skills were put to good use when in 2010, Travis launched Persona, a bead and charm line that was going up against Pandora Jewelry. Although the Danish brand had been around since the 1980s, it wasn’t until gold prices hit record highs that it really resonated with consumers. With its price point-sensitive silver beads and charms, Pandora was being billed as the saviour of the jewellery industry due to its affordability and do-it-yourself appeal. Within a short period, numerous competitors began appearing on the scene, Persona being one of them.

The difference as Travis saw it, though, was in how First Jewelry would present the product, simplifying the selling process for both mass merchants and independents.

“We developed merchandising systems that would make it easier for the retailer to control their inventory, display their products, and make the sale faster,” Travis explains. “The display systems take a smaller footprint, show the beads in a manner that represent what they might look like on somebody’s wrist, and every bead is individually tagged and priced so retailers don’t have to refer to a guide book to look up the price or style number.”

Although Persona first launched at The Bay in 2010, First Jewelry soon expanded distribution to independents, followed by Peoples and Mappins. To ensure it is on the right track with consumers regarding product development and marketing, the company relies on consumer focus groups.

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“We run our products and advertising concepts by them, and we get very good feedback,” Travis notes. “We do a lot of research on the bead-buying consumer. We also look at who’s not buying beads. What we’ve found is there are still a tremendous number of people that don’t own beads and quite a lot of opportunity to market to potential customers”¦ The bead business still has a lot of legs. The goal is to find the perfect combination of what is meaningful to the wearer and what is exciting in terms of fashion.”

Appealing to a new customer base was the driving force behind My First Diamond, silver and diamond jewellery for girls between eight and 13 years old. Although there are various children’s lines available, the tween segment was one Travis saw as a niche market and one retailers could profit from. The collection is sort of “Tiffany-esque,” as he puts it.

“The tween market is actually a more sophisticated group of young ladies than a young female child,” Travis explains. “People think there is a market for children’s jewellery and a market for adult jewellery, but there isn’t anything in between until you focus on it. You need to try and capture that market from the girl who wants the next iPhone or a spa package. The goal is to cultivate your future customer.”

Damage control

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News that Martin Ross Group, one of Canada’s last remaining manufacturers of fine jewellery, had filed for protection from creditors in August stunned the local industry. It also hit close to home for First Jewelry, as the company had been distributing its brands to independents. A few months earlier, Martin Ross had announced it was dropping all lines manufactured outside Canada, including My First Diamond and Currency. To prepare, Travis and his team assembled a customer care department and expanded operations. Still, the news came as a shock, particularly since Persona was still being distributed by Martin Ross. Today, those customers deal directly with First Jewelry.

“We believe that direct relationship between us and the dealer will allow them to do significantly more business,” Travis says. “It will be a much stronger partnership.”

Beyond Martin Ross, the jewellery landscape in Canada remains in flux. Signet Jewelers’ acquisition of Zale Corp., (parent company of Peoples Jewellers and Mappins in Canada) created a middle-market behemoth on both sides of the border, raising concerns about consolidation in the industry. It also offered Signet a way into the Canadian market and with it, more buying clout with vendors and the potential of high-profile brands like Jane Seymour Open Hearts to be offered.

Travis, whose relationship with Zale goes back 25 years to his A & A days, believes the impact on independents should be minimal so long as they themselves are on the brand bandwagon.

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“Generic jewellery will always have a home,” he explains. “Maybe it’s for offering something that is price-competitive where the consumer focuses mainly on cost. However, brands are meaningful today in the jewellery business and the consumer is going to come to your store looking for a brand that is meaningful to them and recognizable”¦ The Signet deal can only help the jewellery business overall with more effort and branding jewellery. However, it’s those that don’t recognize the need for brands in their stores that are going to be hurt by it.”

The brand bandwagon goes beyond simply creating a product, Travis says. “You have to consider what the company that owns the brand is doing to make it desirable so consumers come to the independent retailer to purchase it. It needs to be supported, serviced, and kept continually fresh.”

So what’s the best part about leading First Jewelry?

“One thing that is fascinating to me is developing teams of young people,” Travis explains. “I spend a lot of time with our product management team that does the development and analysis on the products we have under our brands. We do all our own graphic work in-house now. We do a lot of great social media work. Even our PR is done in-house now. It’s about spending my time with the different teams of people, providing inspiration, mentoring, and making the business fun.”

Source URL: https://www.jewellerybusiness.com/features/first-jewelry-a-marketing-and-merchandising-machine-cultivating-a-niche/

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