JWA 2021 Jewellery Industry Best Practices

in the market, the pieces Lang Lang and Gina wore had generated massive interest due to their romantic connotations,” says Zhang. To further push its retail business, DR held numerous livestreams across various channels. By June 2021, 1.7 million people had watched the brand’s livestreaming programmes on Tmall, Douyin and Kuaishou, and over 20.5 million fans have followed the brand’s official accounts on social media sites, with a 19 percent, 78 percent and 1,436 percent increase in WeChat, Douyin and Kuaishou, respectively, compared to 2020. Similarly, DR’s brand communication videos (including those featuring influencers and celebrity partners) in online channels resulted in over 13 billion brand exposures, while the five TVCs released in 2020 garnered more than 249 million views. To complement its presence in new media, DR placed branding contents on TV programmes that have since been played online over 2.3 billion times. OUTSTANDING ENTERPRISE OF THE YEAR – APAC With its successful foray into the digital sphere, DR proved its ability to avert the negative impact of the pandemic. This goes on top of its outstanding track record in traditional retail, where it has built an industry powerhouse by emphasising its true love concepts, choosing the most advantageous locations for its physical stores, finding the right endorsers to enhance its brand image and negotiating with suppliers, to name a few. More importantly, DR managed to find the middle ground between online and offline expansion, and leverage both in pursuit of holistic growth. In the same way that it pushes online sales by establishing experience-oriented channels with livestreaming and e-commerce platforms, the brand boosts sales in offline channels by investing in self- operated stores and offering romantic in-store experiences to customers. “We collect statistics and data from various online platforms to guide our strategy in constructing brick-and- mortar stores, which, in return, would generate traffic in our online channels. With the help of data from our intelligent stores, we realised our mission of digitising operations in our physical outlets,” reveals Zhang. With all these innovations in place, the company’s profits leaped by 113.42 percent in 2020, resulting in an annual net profit of US$81.7 million. Its annual business turnover rose to US$357 million in the same year, up by 48 percent from US$241 million in 2019. By playing to its strengths as a brick-and-mortar retailer and reinforcing its assets with online innovations, DR has provided a better experience to its customers and unlocked the secret to enjoying the best of both worlds. 1. DR True Love Store at the Louvre in Paris 2. Diamond engagement ring from the DR My Heart Collection 3. Necklace from the DR PARIS High Jewelry Collection 4. DR True Love Store at Intime88 Department Store in Beijing 5. DR True Love Store at iSQUARE in Hong Kong 4 3 5