It’s not just Signet. Pandora wants to increase its service business too.
“In line with our charge to be recognized as a full jewelry brand, we are expanding our services portfolio,” Pandora CEO Alexander Lacik said at the company’s Capital Markets Day presentation. “We have had a very strong consumer response to our instant engraving services.… We have successfully introduced enhanced gift packaging. We offer basic repair services, cleaning services, there is a pilot to offer piercing services, as well as offering extended warranty programs.”
He added: “We are looking to monetize [these] expanded services.”
Pandora’s other main goal is to let the world know it offers other kinds of jewelry besides charms, executives said.
“We already have a broad assortment of jewelry,” said chief marketing officer Mary Carmen “MC” Gasco-Buisson at the presentation. “The challenge is that many people still think of us as the charm bracelet brand. The key opportunity is to broaden the perception of the brand to attract a wider range of women to Pandora.”
Jewelry “is still a largely unbranded market…compare[d] to watches, or fragrances, or cosmetics,” she noted. “We see significant opportunities as jewelry becomes more branded. Branded jewelry sales are projected to outgrow other jewelry sales.”
Lacik later said, “The way into a brand is not only though a product. [That] is historically how we have gone to market, which is why our brand hasn’t really been überstrong.
“This is a discretionary category. People may not always be able to tell me what collections I have. But they will tell us, ‘Oh, I like the brand.’ And then when they come into the brand, we can guide them into whatever needs they have. Which is a very different approach from just hammering home that I have this charm over here, and I am a charm proposition.
“You need to make the distinction between [being] a product-driven company versus a brand-driven company. What we are talking about now is elevating this into a brand-driven company. We want people to come in because they like the fact that it’s Pandora.”
Asked about possible mergers and acquisitions, Lacik said, “At one point, we may be part of being an aggregator of assets in this marketplace. But right now that’s not needed….
“Our plan is not to actively pursue [acquisitions] and knock [on] doors. If somebody comes to me—and they do all the time, by the way—we will have a look at it. We are businesspeople. If the opportunity is good, we will do it. But right now we have enough to do.”
The Denmark-based company also announced it was expanding its lab-grown diamonds line to 700 stores in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Pandora hopes its lab-grown business will hit 1 billion Danish kroner (about $142 million) by 2026.
“Our diamonds proposition is appealing to our current fans, as well as to new fans,” said Gasco-Buisson.
(Photo courtesy of Pandora)
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