City Beat: Iconic jewellers losing their shine with younger shoppers

Valentine’s Day week should be one of their busiest periods but a number of big-name Queensland jewellers are struggling. Now, one expert has tapped into what he says is the reason for the sharp decline.

VALENTINE’S Day week should be one of their busiest periods but one retail expert says some of our iconic jewellers are struggling because they lack relevance with the younger generation.

QUT retail academic Gary Mortimer says Wallace Bishop, Prouds and Michael Hill are among the mainstream jewellers struggling against modern brands such Lovisa and Pandora, which have successfully cornered the youth market.

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“At the top end of the market, you have Tiffany where you get a glass of champagne while you look for an engagement ring,” says Mortimer. “At the other end, you have Lovisa and Pandora which have costume jewellery in the $20 range and are appealing to the 25 to 30 year age range. In the middle, you have these iconic older jewellers like Wallace Bishop and Prouds which are really not resonating with the younger market.”

He adds jewellery is a discretionary item and while jewellers do well on special occasions such as Valentine’s Day and Christmas, people don’t buy a watch or ring that often. It’s been a tough period for retailers, and jewellers in particular.

Michael Hill last month said it did not rule out further store closures in the second half of the year as it faced a “particularly difficult” local retail market.

The same month the company behind the popular jewellery and accessory chain Colette was placed into voluntary administration blaming the country’s dire retail climate.

The 103-year-old Wallace Bishop chain meanwhile has closed two stores after amassing losses of $15 million over two years and being warned by its auditors that it may not survive the brutal down in the retail sector.

A recent article in trade publication Jeweller Magazine notes that jewellery as a category remains somewhat sheltered from digital disruption and unlike video and music stores still has the ability to offer a point of difference or unique selling proposition.

“One point of difference for independent jewellers is customer service and the need for shoppers to ‘touch and feel’ jewellery,” it says. But in order to succeed they need to offer the customer an active role in designing their own unique product.

PUSHING TIN

FORMER NSW Premier Morris Iemma is departing Cairns-based Consolidated Tin Mines (CTM) where he has been a director since August 2018. His exit comes just as the firm completes a major acquisition. CTM thanked Iemma, who was NSW premier between 2005 and 2008, for his service at CTM and said the board was “being restructured to introduce mining experts.”

Morris Iemma has resigned from Consolidated Tin Mines.

The former pollie picked up $224,343 in directors fees and salaries last year. Iemma’s exit comes just at CTM announced it was purchasing 100 per cent of the Chillagoe project west of Cairns for up to $53.3 million in cash.

The Chillagoe mines include a range of metals including gold, silver, zinc and copper. Mining has been undertaken in Chillagoe for more than a 100 years with the earliest activities dating back to the late 1800s. CTM has had rather a chequered history in the mining game and nearly collapsed in 2016 owing more than $50 million.

CHAMPION MOVE

BRISBANE video creation platform Clipchamp is on the move. The company, which numbers tech entrepreneur Steve Baxter on its board, has just raised $13.2 million in a funding round that will allow it to expand in key markets such as the US. Launched five years ago, Clipchamp now has more than eight million registered users worldwide creating content for platforms such as YouTube. Baxter tells your diarist that he was attracted to the technology behind Clipchamp as well as quality of the people, including chief executive Alex Dreiling. The video content creation market is now a $135 billion industry with 720,000 hours of new content uploaded on YouTube every day. Clipchamp has announced it has reincorporated in the US but it headquarters will remain in Brisbane.

Steve Baxter is a director of Brisbane start-up Clipchamp.