Jewelry Brand Boucheron Opens The First Boutique In Mainland China In Shanghai

In January 15th, Kai Yun group's jewelry brand Boucheron

In Shanghai, the first boutique in mainland China, Shanghai Heng Lung Plaza boutique, will cover the classic Quatre series and other kinds of jewelry.

Meanwhile, the store in China World Trade Center, Beijing, also followed suit and opened in January 22nd.

This was founded in 1858 by Frederic Boucheron.

Now, after 160 whole years, I finally choose to enter the Chinese market after more than 100 years.

Because of similar positioning and customer base, Boucheron has always been compared with Cartire, the main brand of its group, but Cartire is developing and expanding China.

On top of Boucheron, Kaczorowski, President of Boucheron China, once said: "Boucheron's purpose is not to compete with Cartire, but to convey its unique image to consumers."

In 1858, the 28 year old designer, Boucheron, opened his boutique in the most stylish Royal Palace District of Paris, drawing inspiration from Russian ballet, decorative arts and other cultures.

The back door shop moved to Wanda Square and was once next door to the Countess of Castiglione, the second empires of France.

In the early days of its founding, Boucheron became the royal jewelry of the aristocracy and celebrities. The Russian Czar, the French actress Sarah Bernhardt, the Countess of Polignac and Lady Curzon were all customers of Bao Shi long.

In 2000, Kai Yun group bought Boucheron.

Boucheron's Shanghai boutique is a key step in the brand development of Asia's retail sector. As the luxury market has warmed up in recent months, the jewelry brands originally aimed at high net worth began to target China frequently.

A few months ago, Buccellati, a high-end jewellery brand in Italy, was acquired by China's gang Tai Group and entered the Chinese market. Although Buccellati is known as "blue blood jewelry" in Europe, its market limitations are very low in China.

Zhao Ruijun, President and director of gang Tai Group, told reporters that China's jewelry market is experiencing the upgrading process from material consumption to brand consumption.

This also provides good information for enterprises to invest in jewelry.

Before that, the jewellery market experienced the development process of roller coaster. The change of market environment was most directly reflected in the famous brand of jewelry watches.

According to the financial report, in the whole fiscal year ended last March, the sales volume of the group fell by 4%, and the company's net profit fell more than the market expected.

However, according to the world clothing and shoe net, the group has witnessed a remarkable recovery in the beginning of the 17/18 fiscal year. In the first five months, its sales of watches, jewellery, jewelry, including Cartire, IWC and Van Cleef & Arpels were strong. The success of the whole group led to a double digit growth. The sales volume of the group increased by 10% over the same period last year, and its sales increased by 12% between April and August.

The sales of jewellery department is the most impressive, with a value of 16%.

The growth of jewellery watch business has been helped by the tradeoff between the group.

At the end of June this year, Renfeng group sold its "Shanghai Tang Shanghai", which is famous for its Chinese classical style, to Italy entrepreneur Alessandro Bastagli and Hongkong private Holdings Company Cassia Investment Ltd., by focusing on the jewelry watch area by abandoning the poor performing brand.

At present, Kai Yun group seems to have the same intention.

Although the three jewellery brands of Boucheron, Pomellato and Dodo account for less than 20% of the total performance of Kai Yun group, but in the latest financial reports, Boucheron and Pomellato last year's strong performance, and the sales of jewellery category of cloud group increased by 13%.

In September 2015, H l l ne Poulit-Duquesne, which had worked for many years in the group and the peak group, was recruited to open cloud group as a new CEO of Bao Shi long.

Poulit-Duquesne said in an interview with reporters that the jewellery market is far from the maturity of the clock market. The clock market has been carved up by the brand. However, only about 15% of the global premium jewelry market is controlled by the brand, and the growth space of the brand is still very large.

But she also admitted: "in the past few years, Boucheron has not been very well developed, but this brand has not been destroyed. All its beautiful things are still there. My mission is to awaken the brand with a long history."

As part of the revitalization of the brand, the Chinese market has also become an important battleground. But there is no doubt that Boucheron will face many challenges in this pformation and development.

As Poulit-Duquesne said, China's jewelry industry is still at an early stage. Foreign brands, Hong Kong brand and local brands can not be changed for a short time.

Foreign brands are entrenched in the most high-end markets, such as Catier, Tiffany and Bvlgari, which have entered the Chinese market in the early years, and have established a more stable image and higher recognition in the minds of Chinese consumers.

At present, the strong brands Catier and Van Cleef & Arpels have 278 and 124 stores, and have formed their own mature retail network in China.

The Asia Pacific region is also the fastest growing market for the group. In the first five months of last year alone, the growth rate in mainland China and Hongkong reached two digits.

This makes Boucheron face fierce competition.

It is reported that agents had opened stores for Boucheron in the Bund 18 and other places a few years ago, but in order to strengthen management, the group has already withdrawn all the agency rights.

In comparison, Boucheron's previous market is limited to Europe, Japan and the Middle East, even though there are few outlets in these regions, and 40 direct outlets in Europe and Japan, while 20 in the Middle East.

At the opening ceremony of the first boutique in Shanghai, we talked directly to Boucheron CEO H e l ne Poulit-Duquesne. She briefed reporters on the Boucheron's five year plan, and the strategies to be adopted in the priority development of the Chinese market, including how to spread out retail stores, how to make product pricing and spread marketing.

Q: what are Boucheron's overall development strategy and China's market strategy?

H e l ne Poulit-Duquesne: when we formulated the five year development plan for Boucheron, we regarded China as the first priority to develop.

There were fewer stores in China's Boucheron, and now two shops are planned. The first one is in Beijing, Shanghai, which is the first place for our geography strategy.

At present, although not much disclosure can be made, the plan has just been passed by the shareholders' meeting, which can be released some news.

First of all, there is a strategic development in geography. We will define some priority areas in the world, such as Shanghai, China. At the same time, the company has made some efforts in promoting foreign publicity, such as introducing shops with new concepts. Besides stores in Beijing and Shanghai, Boucheron will also set up shops in spring stores in Moscow and Geneva.

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Will it expand the price range of products to meet the needs of consumers at different levels?

H l l ne Poulit-Duquesne: in China, Boucheron adopts the strategy of "price first". China's price strategy is mainly based on the price of Hongkong. Of course, we will take into account the history of the whole brand price. Of course, in the next few years, there may be some changes in the price of the mainland market in China and today, but the overall price trend will still close to the price of the city.

But this adjustment may not be understood by lowering prices, because the exchange rate is constantly changing every day, so it will face an international currency problem.

Boucheron is indeed a high-end jewellery brand, but when we entered the Chinese market, we did not consider changing the supply of brand products. Because I believe that some of our products, as well as its distribution and varieties, have been very capable of meeting the needs of Chinese customers, such as Quatre, which is our star's flagship product, engagement rings, diamond jewelry and other high-end jewellery. Boucheron can achieve wide coverage in product diversity and meet the expectations of Chinese customers for our brand.

Q: Why did you choose to expand the Chinese market at this time?

H e l ne Poulit-Duquesne: of course, there are different reasons.

First of all, this year is my two years in office. The strategic development of the company two years ago has begun to show results. The pformation and expansion in 2018 were planned two years ago.

In addition, this year is the celebration of our brand's 160th anniversary birthday. Throughout the year, the company will propagate around the 160th anniversary celebration. Therefore, we think it is very suitable for us to combine this year with the opening of new stores in China.

My experience tells me that China's jewelry market is already very mature. A large group of people has a deep understanding of jewelry, and will regard it as an art. Buying jewelry is no longer just a vanity but a pursuit of technology.

At the same time, the Chinese market has begun to invest in the jewelry industry, which is an important symbol of market maturity.

Q: what are the characteristics of Chinese jewelry consumers? Will they affect the brand's adjustment to the product?

H e l ne Poulit-Duquesne: Chinese consumers may prefer to spend their holidays on jewelry or wedding, and now they have experienced some changes in recent years when they experience such a stage of consumption upgrading.

For example, holidays and wedding ceremonies are worn by jewellery, and now it has become more common for women to wear jewelry or even high jewelry.

As for Boucheron's existing products, it is not only high quality jewelry, but also suitable for everyday wear.

For example, there are many choices in the single ring series, so Boucheron does not need to make some moves on the Chinese market. The company believes that the middle class of China can find a jewelry suitable for its existing products.

Q: there are quite a few stable customer groups in traditional jewellery brands. Do you think they really need to be younger and digitalized?

H e l ne Poulit-Duquesne: Yes, I think everything must be digitalized now.

In the list of Boucheron's top jewellery customers, a large number of customers are Millennials. They were born around 90s, and now they are gradually entering marriage or marriage age. Besides, they also need to consider wearing jewelry in daily life.

We have realized that we have an idea of Boucheron brand, which may be considered as a brand selected by a relatively large number of customers. In fact, this is not the case. Our customer base has naturally come to the younger generation and accounts for a large proportion.

Two years ago, when I just took over the brand, the brand digitalization degree was 0%, and there was no digital pformation at all. Until today, in the propaganda process, digitization has reached 60%, so the whole brand has made great breakthroughs in digitization over the past two years.

According to my observation of the jewelry industry in recent ten years, I find that the average age of jewelry industry, especially the high-end jewelry industry, is greatly younger. Now there are many young people in their 20 years old. They will choose high grade jewelry, which is an iteration of the whole industry.

The digitalization of Boucheron is first reflected in the input of the media, with a lot of digital media resources being invested.

There are also some social networking inputs.

For example, in Europe, social media is mainly Instagram or FaceBook, which is WeChat and micro-blog in Asia, and the user base is huge.

When I was just entering Boucheron, the company was propagate mainly in the form of print, and then on my proposal, adding a lot of digital or video content, because through video, we could tell stories, rather than in print, its information was static, and our fans could share the history of Boucheron through video and social networks.

Of course, our brand itself is not a subjective desire to make our customers younger, but the current trend has changed, our customers are already younger customers, and what we need to do is to provide a suitable way of communication for them. Modern young people like to share their current life, so the brand must establish an emotional link with customers, which is a more solid link, but now many brands have forgotten this intention.

Boucheron strengthens this bond in two ways.

The first is through social networking, the second is interpersonal relationship.

One of the most important points in interpersonal relationships is people oriented. For example, when I come to China, I will invite some Chinese VIP to meet them and have dinner together to maintain emotional ties.

Boucheron has held a brand retrospective exhibition this year in Paris. Its name is Vendorama in 160th anniversary.

The effect of the opening of the exhibition has exceeded our expectations. The brand does not tell the history from the traditional point of view, and the brand story. On the contrary, it is almost curated from the opposite of the historical practice.

For example, we have five different workshops. We are not only visitors, but also can participate in these workshops. At the same time, there will be actors who tell our stories and interact with them in a performance way.

Digitalization is the tool we use to pay attention to the feelings of consumers. This exhibition is a good example.

Next, we are also starting to bring this exhibition to China.

More interesting reports, please pay attention to the world clothing shoes and hats net.