On the eve of the 10th anniversary of Delicacy Forever Jewellery (http://www.jingyongheng.com), Zhang Weifeng, Marketing Director of this multiproduct jewelry company being one of the top brands in China, answered the questions filed by Olga Patseva, Rough&Polished correspondent in Shanghai.
Please, say a few words about your work in Delicacy Forever Jewellery.
I am the marketing director of Delicacy Forever Jewellery and my activities include promoting three leading trade marks of our company and also the work to involve retail in selling products made by our brand.
As is known, Delicacy Forever Jewellery took part in the Shanghai Jewelry Show in April this year - What were your impressions of the exhibition and your assessment of its impact?
Yes, in April this year our company came to participate in the exhibition to promote and popularize our brand of emeralds, which was our main stake this time – Delicacy Forever Emerald. This brand officially emerged in 2008 and its product range covers the mid- and high-end segments of the emerald bracelets market, as well as flower and decorative components and fashionable jewelry pieces graced with a combination of emeralds and diamonds. Our skilfully made stand, Chinese style, and high-quality emerald pieces of our company won complete disposition of visitors at the Shanghai exhibition. The great number of visitors to the company’s stand who were eager to get briefed on our jewelry products as well as briskly going sales proved that DFJ got a good promotional boost from taking part in the Shanghai Jewelry Show 2010.
Could you provide some data related to your company’s operational turnover or your sales on the domestic market? What was your growth rate from the day your company was established?
The DFJ employees are highly efficient experts and professionals in their business. Relying on its long-term experience of successful work and striving to develop the company managed to put together a team of more than 500 highly skilled technical experts and start a modern factory seated on an area exceeding 5000 sq. m. We invested a great deal of money into the sphere of manufacturing hard ware buying first-class state-of-the-art laser equipment for jewelry production from Germany, Italy, Japan and other countries like forming, engraving, welding equipment and other professional machinery. Our production capacity in combination with a team of professional designers, inspectors, marketing experts, advisers and consultants based on close cooperation between each department and each section resulted in a united team dedicated to company management in the process of a long time of “running in.” This worthy team brings worthy results: since 2003 our company’s sales proceeds permanently exceed 500 million yuans ($73.5 million), while its net assets amount to 300 million yuans ($44 million) and annual output exceeds one million items.
Currently the field of DFJ activity spans over all China and our stores are mainly concentrated in the Hubei, Jiangsu, Zhejiang provinces and others, while the total number of our outlets reaches over 300. Every year we are growing at an average constant rate of 10%; the growth rate in the Hubei Province is especially impressive: right now DFJ has already opened stores in the majority of first-class commercial areas in the City of Wuhan where we occupy top positions among the well-known jewelry brands present in the region.
What kind of difficulties faced Delicacy Forever Jewellery during its development? What did you do to overcome these difficulties?
Our enterprise and trade mark continue to grow in the process of their development and certainly there are a lot of small and big problems one mey run along the way. Our company has not been an exception in this respect. In the course of 10 years of its existance DFJ faced such problems as an adverse macroeconomic situation, cost price increase, bottlenecks in designing our products, etc. However, preserving the unity of our company and maintaining the managing concept “Quality as a life, creation as driving force, and service as purpose” were the things which set the foundation for constant work to research and develop new products promoting them in the market.
What do you like most in your work?
In my work I most of all like to interact with customers from various provinces and visit our sales outles scattered over the most various areas to assess the situation. Firstly, in this way I can get market information and sales dynamics firsthand, from businessmen and participants of our brand operating in a certain area. Secondly, visiting various provinces with an aim of doing market research, it is possible to see personally the market potential of a territory you analyze and take it into consideration in your subsequent work targeted at expanding this particular market.
Was your company affected by the world financial crisis in any way? In what areas?
When the world financial crisis broke out we came to face not only the aggressive influence of macroeconomic market environment on jewelry consumers’ behavior but also growing operating costs, essential hikes and slumps in prices for precious metals, higher competition in homogeneous jewelry segments and other factors which continue to generate difficulties in our industry. Although the situation is better in such jewelry centres as Panyu, Huadu and other business complexes aimed at export, however consumers’ awareness and the temporary market contraction trend make the Shenzhen jewellers to adapt to the situation and engage in branding at the level of provinces. The key goals of industrial improvement in the near future will be complicated by extraneous difficulties and risks as we are trying to reach them.
As is known, in early 2010 global polished prices went up, so did this in any way affect your company’s product costs and prices for end consumers?
For such companies as Delicacy Forever Jewellery where furnishing and inlaying jewelry pieces with diamonds are one of the main lines of business stable rough prices appear extremely important. Therefore, consecutively rising prices for polished diamonds within the last two years and an increase in world polished prices in the beginning of 2010 influenced our prime costs a little bit, however our company corrected its diamond prices only slightly making them higher and having avoided essential price hikes. Thus, in general it is possible to say that this time rising prices could not produce any marked impact on the number of orders we have in our company and jewelry prices for end users.
In June 2010, it will be 10 years as Delicacy Forever Jewellery was established. Could you, please, tell about your plans to celebrate this significant event in your life?
Indeed, 2010 is a very important year for our company. It will be 10 years since we launched this company. On the eve of such a significant date to celebrate the anniversary and at the same time to express our gratitude to all friends who constantly supported us throughout these ten years, the company plans to organise a big action in the end of 2010 and to invite all the participants who have joined our brand and our business partners from all provinces. They will arrive at our head office in Shenzhen to celebrate together recalling all the triumphs and failures of DFJ, which we experienced during these 10 years as well as to look in the future and create an even more brilliant jewelry company hand in hand with others bringing the Delicacy Forever Jewellery brand (in Chinese it sounds as Jing Yong Heng Zhubao) on a nation-wide and even international level.
What is the share of diamond jewelry in your company’s product range?
Delicacy Forever Jewellery is a large jewelry enterprise which has grown from a factory engaged in jewelry inlaying. Our basic production is jewelry pieces graced with diamonds and emeralds, where diamond jewelry occupies the major share coming to 70% of total products. At the very start of DFJ we were engaged only in manufacturing diamond jewelry. Subsequently, due to expanding business we included emerald jewelry in our product range. The floor space of our enterprise is about 3,000 sq.m. of which almost 2/3 are occupied by a diamond workshop so you may see the importance of diamond jewelry in our company.
In your opinion, what kind of jewelry made by your company is most sought for currently in the market?
Though in the last couple of years we were focused on promoting DFJ’s emerald brand and expanding our segment in the emerald market, we also did not forget bolstering our positions in diamond production. Our diamond pieces continue to enjoy the greatest demand. In the first place, long-term promulgation of diamond culture succeeded in coining the concept “If you get married, buy a diamond” in the minds of Chinese consumers making diamonds a basic trend in the Chinese market. In the second place, our company operates two large brands, Delicacy Forever Jewellery and CANIA, both having as their core products diamond jewelry, so currently it is this production which is the most sought for in the market.
The Chinese domestic jewelry market is ever growing bringing along more competition. In what way are your company’s jewelry products different or better compared with other jewelry companies’ production?
Delicacy Forever Jewellery is a jewelry enterprise which is professionally engaged in furnishing and inlaying diamond jewelry pieces. It has started and grown right from a jewelry workshop.
Please, describe the fields in which DFJ is involved in cooperation with French jewelry company CANIA?
First of all, I would like to tell you that Delicacy Forever Jewellery is CANIA’s production partner and agent in the Asia-Pacific Region where we are operating along two major business lines: designing products and promoting our brand in the market. All the production of the French jewelry trade mark which is being sold in the Chinese market is made by Delicacy Forever Jewellery, while all the specialised stores/outlets of CANIA in territory of China are represented by DFJ as its authorised agent.
Do you plan to cone out on the international market or Russian market?
In the present time our major market is the domestic market of China and so far we have no plans to advance our goods to the international market, but we do not exclude a possibility of close cooperation with suitable foreign jewelers.
Could you unveil your company’s plans of development for 2010 and further prospects for our readers?
In 2010 one of the main aspects of our work will be to carry out events dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the enterprise, while another will be to build up our advertising activity in the Hubei Province with an aim of strengthening the positions of our diamond brands in the local market. In view of a large number of brands presented in the market these days and higher uniformity of production, we shall spare no efforts to continue strategic development of the enterprise.
One the hand we shall maintain high quality of our goods in full conformity with the requirements of state standards and also develop new designs to increase competitiveness of our products. These are our two primary goals for 2010.
On the other hand we shall promote our brands, and for this purpose we have already completed a marketing plan for 2010. We plan to take an active part in all jewelry exhibitions this year as for instance jewelry shows Sichuan, Shanghai, etc. to build an efficient dialogue with other entities of the jewelry industry, to exchange experience and also to give an opportunity to more and more Chinese and foreign customers to get acquainted with Delicacy Forever Jewellery and thus making our brand more popular. We also intend to continue expanding the geography of our brand and reaching the markets of surrounding cities. Our leading trade marks, DFJ and CANIA, have already turned into well-recognized brands in the Hubei and Zhejiang areas. In 2009 we opened an office in the Hubei Province and thus promoting the image of our production by way of advertising. In 2010, the company already started to develop DFJ’s emerald brand in provinces, and we plan to open new stores in neighbouring cities, supervising and directing the brtanding of our trade marks within a uniform channel.
Olga Patseva, Rough&Polished, Shanghai
