JWA 2021 Jewellery Industry Best Practices

66 | Jewellery World Awards 2021 MCLON Jewellery Co Ltd CATEGORY: After decades of serving its target market faithfully, MCLON Jewellery Co Ltd celebrated a milestone on February 10, 2021 when it successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange’s A-share market. Further gaining momentum, the manufacturer sold 82,965 jewellery pieces in the first quarter of 2021 and 497,754 items for the full year of 2020 – a huge leap from its pre- pandemic sales of less than 15,000 items in 2018 and 2019 combined. According to Chairman Songhe Sun, MCLON was able to boost sales success with strong customer engagement. The brand fulfilled the emotional needs and aspirations of its target audience, which is comprised of chic urbanites consisting mostly of working females in their thirties. “If a brand needs to cater to everyone to survive, it will neither gain loyal fans nor business longevity in the long run. We were able to achieve our goals by concentrating on a specific group of customers and creating strong connections with our focus audience,” Sun says. REDEFINING LUXURY Strong customer relationship has helped MCLON stay ahead of the game when it comes to identifying emerging trends. “We discovered that women who belong to the fast-growing post-90s generation no longer coveted expensive jewellery. Rather, they prefer light luxury fashion and fast-fashion products,” shares Sun. Such an observation mirrored MCLON’s experience in its apparel business, wherein customers showed a preference for fast fashion over signature labels. As such, it shifted from selling traditional and more expensive gold products that yield minimal margins to more sellable jewellery items that generate bigger profits. Industry Innovation of the Year COUNTRY / REGION: CHINA 1