Every year there are more than 1000 jewelry exhibitions of various scales held across the world. Tens of thousands of jewelry firms and millions of visitors take part in these shows. The largest jewelry exhibitions are run in Basel (once a year), Vicenza (three times a year), Las Vegas, Bangkok and Hong Kong.
However, Russian participation in international exhibitions is insignificant. From time to time only about 15 companies take part in top-class shows, joining mainly JCK Las Vegas and Baselworld. These companies include Almaz-Holding, Kabirsky, Krastsvetmet, Kristall of Smolensk, Rifesta, Sadko, Elit and JT-Jewelry Theater. ALROSA took part in International Jewellery Tokio (IJT) several times, while Imperia Solntsa (Region Yuvelir) attended it once.
ALROSA took part in Tokyo expositions in 2005-2007. The company’s exposition attracted quite a good foot traffic (over 500 visitors a day). Within the frames of these exhibitions ALROSA ran an auction selling unique polished diamonds. The company organized a similar auction at Hong Kong International Jewellery Show-2007 as well.
Every year the Polish City of Gdansk holds Amberif, an international exhibition of amber, jewelry and gems. For some years - as for instance in 1998, 2004 and 2007 - under the auspices of the Kaliningrad Administration it was joined by such Russian regional enterprises as the Kaliningrad Amber Works, Souveniry Baltiki, Ambertrin, Yunona and ChP Simukov. According to Ewa Rachoń, CEO of Amberif & Ambermart in Gdansk, the only place where professional expositions are held every year is the Museum of Amber in Kaliningrad. In her opinion, the Gdansk shows proved that Russian goods have no demand. Alas! We all know that amber is usually "ferried" to Poland as raw material and sold. And there the Poles (about 2000 workshops and 14 thousand workers) make world-class jewelry and household and interior décor items using Russian amber.
The project “Gdansk - the World Capital of Amber” is a self-consistent multi-year program aimed at creating many facilities and institutions to boost travel attraction of Polish Pomerania as an “amber land” … but without participation of Russian jewelers.
The second example of trans-border exhibition movement is the participation of Yakut jewelry firms in international shows in China. As a rule, they go there being part of complex stands displayed by Yakutia. For instance, Yakutia takes part in the annual Harbin Fair since 2000. Besides jewelry companies, the exhibition is joined by lumber, construction and agricultural factories, as well as by travel agencies. Yakutia is pursuing exhibition activity concepts which provide for partial financing of participating jewelry firms in important events. Such assistance gives a chance to take part in exhibitions and promote their goods not only to major jewelry manufacturers, but also to small-scale workshops and individual businesspersons (OOO Sakha Taas, OOO YuK Zvezda Yakutii, IP Uran Sakha, IP Ivanov Yu.N., IP Everstov G. E, IP Osipov V.V. and IP Zabolotskaya M.I.).
Summing up the statements of Russian jewelry manufacturers about the main motives for their participation in international jewelry shows the following reasons prevail: 1) searching for new sales markets; 2) establishing partnerships; 3) consolidating one’s own reputation and status confirmed by diplomas of participants in foreign exhibitions.
Exhibition business experts know that to attain some results, it is necessary to take part in an exhibition for five years non-stop. During the first two years people just get accustomed to your presence. In the third year they start to greet you. In the fourth you may have a chance for preliminary negotiations. Further on it is considered that the company has proved its stability and self-consistency and it is possible to deal with it. However, so far we have only single examples in this respect. Starting form 2000, Almaz-Holding was a self-perpetuating exponent at Baselworld for 10 years and five times displayed its expositions in Las Vegas. Elit and JT five times went to Basel.
Olga Mironova of RESTEC, an exhibition association organizing well-known jewelry shows in Moscow and St. Petersburg, told about the problems of participation in international jewelry fairs: “We had many proposals from our foreign colleagues to organize Russian pavilions. We did not go to Basel. To a great extent the situation there was marred by non-professionalism displayed by the Guild of Jewellers of Russia, namely by Mr. Rybakov. Time should pass to erode the resulting bad opinion. Speaking about Tokyo, it should be pointed out that ALROSA believes it is capable to work independently at foreign exhibitions. But the problem is that ALROSA’s CEOs are changed often, so there is no consistency in their exhibition strategy and there is nobody there to solve such issues with. We took out our national Russian stand to Las Vegas for three years before the crisis and ran a separate program of presentations holding press conferences and releasing special issues of our magazine. But it turned out rather costly to do all this at our own expense. We had a hope that Russian authorities will notice this, that our Chamber of Commerce and Industry will lend a helping hand, that they will issue an АТА Carnet for us (the simplified system for temporary import-export having easy-to-handle document turnover and no collaterals) and will help us at least organizationally to take our collections abroad… They only asked for bribes. We were losing 30,000-40,000 euros a year. Do you think anyone will be interested in this kind of work? In the crisis period we deemed it impossible to urge companies to spend money for something clearly useless in the United States where customers are reluctant to buy even what is made in their own country…”
Alexey Shcherbina, CEO of Yuvelir-Fest, believes "that our manufacturers are from the outset at a disadvantage to their foreign colleagues who work in a much more flexible tax environment and other conditions, but still receive state subsidies for participation in foreign exhibitions. Such is the case in Thailand, Hong Kong, Turkey and even in Italy. There are also specific features in the policies of various exhibitions. For example, in Basel, no discounts are applicable and they work with each company directly, so there is no sense in organizing a joint Russian stand there. But at other exhibitions - in Munich, Las Vegas, Bangkok, Astana - the organizer of an exposition from various countries is entitled for commission. However, foreign exhibition organizations are very sensitive to their partners’ obligatoriness. For them it matters how the organizer of an exhibition will distribute the granted discount: will the organizing agency pocket the money and furthermore use the opportunity to take something “on top of that” from their grateful countrymen, or share their agency commission with them? Examples of the first kind were registered in Basel, Vicenza, and at other exhibition sites. As an example of the second kind I can cite our own experience of work with KAZEXPO and Reed Exhibitions: the companies, which were serviced by Yuvelir-Fest, received some part of our agency commission. For example, at the upcoming regular round of Tokyo Jewellery International to start at the end of January 2011 we received a 20% discount and half of it we shall give to Russian exhibitors.”
Thus, speaking about the prospects of prominent presence at international jewelry shows, it is necessary to state that today the Russian jewelry industry has no financial abilities or a weighty administrative clout to do that. Everything boils down to sporadic actions and “business tourism.” The most to be derived in this situation is business experience and new ideas for Russian jewellers in the field of design and marketing.
Vladimir Teslenko for Rough and Polished
