Emerging vs. Established Jewelry Retailers: Who’s Winning the Price Competition?

Cluster–based Competitor Analysis is a detail-oriented dimension of competitor price intelligence that is crucial for developing a powerful dynamic pricing strategy. In this analysis of Jewelry competitors, we collected Google Shopping retail price data and created unorthodox competitor groupings for emerging and established jewelry retailers based on their initial operation year.  With our GrowByData Product intelligence solution, we matched and tracked jewelry items to the variant level and collected daily price data on retailers selling those products.

Competitor Analysis: Emerging vs. Established Jewelers

Most people want to own at least one piece of high-quality jewelry in their lifetime. The question is how to make sure what you’re buying is actually of the quality it’s purported to be. World-famous Investor Warren Buffet once said, “If you don’t know Jewelry, know the Jeweler.” He’s right. Usually, jewelers with a long history of good business are valued amongst consumers. Even buyers who do not understand much about the jewelry trade want to make sure the pieces they buy are authentic, and knowing the jeweler’s background is one way to ensure that authenticity.

For this analysis, we asked several key questions:

• Who are the industry leaders and who are the emerging jewelers?
• What sets those two sub-categories apart?
• Are emerging jewelers gaining momentum and market share over established leaders?
• Because jewelry products are luxury items and usually expensive compared to products in other categories, how price competitive are these two categories of jewelry retailers?

CLASSIFICATION

First, we clustered jewelry competitors based on years of operation:

• Emerging Jewelers – Founded after 1975 AD
• Industry Leaders – Founded in 1800s or early 1900s

FINDINGS

Here are the two main points what we determined in terms of emerging versus established jewelers:

#1 – Emerging jewelers sell more products online.

• • 81.4% of jewelry is sold by emerging retailers
  • 18.6% of jewelry is sold by industry leaders

#2 Emerging Jewelers reprice more often than industry leaders.

• 98.6% of Price Changes were made by Emerging Jewelers
• 1.4% of Price Changes were made by Industry Leaders

INSIGHTS & CONCLUSIONS

• 1. Emerging Jewelers Are Gaining Market Share.

One of our main findings is that Emerging Jewelers, though established nearly a century after Industry Leaders, are gaining wide popularity and winning market share in the global Jewelry industry. They were found most price competitive over popular giants that are considered leaders in the industry.

• 2. How Is this Possible?

The simplest explanation is that more products online equals greater brand visibility. As a result, emerging jewelers are gaining significant customer outreach because most modern consumers use online search engines like Google for shopping inspiration, research and route to market. Further, emerging jewelers are leveraging Price Competitiveness to create a Blue Ocean Strategy that competes against the industry leaders.

• 3. Price Competition = Price Intelligence

Discounts, promotions and special offers attract customers. High Price Volatility amongst Emerging Jewelers indicates that they see the value of price monitoring as a strategy to win more market share, whereas industry leaders have not caught onto this modern necessity.

The Bottom Line

The takeaway here is that emerging jewelers are becoming a threat to industry leaders. A time may come when the small fish becomes so big that the big ones appear small, changing the nature of the entire pond.

SEE More: OUR ARTICLES ON JEWELRY & ACCESSORIES