When planning the launch of a fine-jewelry line, companies need to take a number of factors into account — among them seasonal considerations, emerging design trends, and relevant buying occasions such as anniversaries, birthdays, holidays or graduations. Additionally, the rise of digital commerce means it’s important to have a flexible product-development structure so you can quickly adapt to the faster and more demanding pace of online selling.
Above all, creating new collections calls for careful analysis and an understanding of the ecosystem where the brand is positioned. The company’s various internal branches have to find ways to translate the creative efforts of the designers or freelancers into a practical merchandising model. That means having clear audit elements — benchmarks and other research-based parameters — to help prepare a launch strategy and allocate stock keeping units (SKUs) accordingly. These elements become a clear point of reference for determining the collection’s budget and expected turnover. Let’s examine the role of each department involved in launching jewelry lines.
Marketing
The marketing department’s responsibility is first of all to review and analyze the sales reports of the previous season. For those dealing with direct distribution to retailers, it’s useful to have access to their sell-through data. When it comes to wholesalers, it may be more difficult to get these reports. It will therefore be fundamental to establish a strong relationship with the stores themselves and the sales staff dealing with wholesalers, in order to obtain the most concrete figures.
Another important element is clear brand positioning and careful observation of what the competition is doing in that specific landscape. This includes mapping newcomers and determining what offerings they are bringing to the market.
If the brand is represented internationally, it is advisable to target products to the demands of each locale’s market, such as jewelry sizes, stone colors, or local trends. The collection should also integrate specific capsules related to major purchasing occasions or religious festivities in those markets.
Design
The role of the design department is to capture the zeitgeist by researching the trends-to-be and their evolution. Trend forecasting analysis will not only provide key input for new collections, but also help inspire creative ways to adapt the brand’s timeless, classic collections — the jewelry pieces that strongly reflect the brand’s stylistic identity. Part of that identity is a visual impact that’s recognizable to the end consumer.
The design team will therefore have the important task of working on innovation — for instance, researching the use of new materials, stones and colors. It will also need to gauge the production team’s ability to support these innovations. As such, it’s crucial to start the conversation with the product developers and artisans early on to determine the feasibility of the new designs.
Merchandising
The merchandiser is the architect who takes all of this input and organizes it into a merchandising plan where every SKU has a specific allocated cost in keeping with the budget and the season’s turnover goals. Merchandisers are the bridge connecting the design, marketing and sales departments. Their responsibility lies in providing a structure for the designers’ aesthetic ideas through a solid and pragmatic look at strategy, margins, profits, and the complexities of distribution.
In their daily activities, merchandisers are constantly analyzing and studying best-selling items and seasonal collections. They must keep track of local trends and other developments in order to deliver the most appropriate collection launches for each market. They also need to maintain an ongoing relationship with designers so the latter can translate these marketing and sales criteria into creative conceptions that will yield commercially successful, profitable collections for the brand.
In writing the SKU plan or collection structure, the merchandiser will take into consideration:
- Collection architecture — the target audience, the ratio of timeless designs to seasonal ones, delivery plans, etc.
- SKU projections, balancing sales forecasts against production costs and timelines.
- Input from sales reports and customer feedback.
- The complexity of each market.
Only once all of these steps are accomplished — marketing analysis, inspiration boards from designers, and an SKU plan — can the brand start the actual design process and product development that will bring the new collection to life.
Image: Tiffany & Co.Article from the Rapaport Magazine - December 2020. To subscribe click here.