How COVID-19 Reshaped the Gold & Jewellery Industry

The previous year does not preserve good memories, and it is considered by many as a useless year not to be counted. Going through one lockdown to another and witnessing strict rules where “social distance” and “stay at home” slogans featured the year. However, as the famous saying states, “every cloud has a silver lining”, these dark moments have affected, somehow, positively in the gold jewellery industry.

The gold jewellery industry was, till recent days, following pure traditional selling strategies, and we can say a bit behind the use of technology compared to other sectors and industries. With the lockdown, many jewellery shops that could not cope with the current situation, and due to their traditional selling practice, could not survive, unlike others who managed to find the silver lining in this situation.

Digital Gold Jewellery Shops

Although browsing online for jewellery items was available even before the pandemic has started, the tendency was more to buy from physical shops, not online. Adding to this, digital shops, even normal online shops, were not a common practice among the majority of gold jewellery boutiques and their customers.

However, the need to use the facilities for online shopping increased during the last year and a half, which drove big companies in the gold jewellery market to enhance their online gold shop to ease the shopping experience and make it as close to a real shopping experience as possible. As for the gold shops that never had a shopping facility online have started an online shop to adapt to the current situation.

The online or digital shopping experience turned out to have a positive outcome. It is noticeable that shoppers on the internet tend to buy more items or add more supplements to the item they intended to buy initially. The reasons behind this are that shoppers may spend hours scanning the online shop while lying down in the bed, relaxing in the house, having food, or working from home in a relaxed manner.

Another new way to sell jewellery is that some markets invented a virtual shopping experience where you as the shopper would have a chance to try the jewel on! This was a useful way to overcome the pitfall of the lockdown. Even after the curfew or lockdown was no longer in the picture, many clients are still avoiding being in the crowd, so digital shops are the perfect solution for them.

Another interesting factor that turned out to be useful for the gold jewellery industry is the band in travel. So many people, especially to be wed couples, spent their money that was supposed to be for a honeymoon trip, in buying more gold jewellery pieces or upgrading the wedding ring.

The ban on social gatherings also resulted in cancelling many weddings or engagement parties, letting people buy better engagement rings or wedding gold set from the saved money of cancelled parties.

The use of social media in marketing, promotion and selling of gold jewellery

Again, due to the situation, we found ourselves obliged to live in, the need to manage your work online has got more vital. Therefore, many branded and well-known gold shops have a strong presence on social media right now. This new strategy helped spread brand awareness, reach a global audience, and have different sales channels, thus increasing sales and the bottom line.

The COVID-19 has somehow shaped the way the gold & jewellery industry work forever to be more suitable for the changes to come in the future. Going digital guarantees more demand from a global audience, increasing challenges that would open the door to new strategies to survive the fierce international competition. All this would lead to better performance, production and more innovation.