A few months ago, our team here at New Gild Jewelers gathered in our Linden Hills, Minneapolis studio in order to determine our go-to-market strategy for 2020.
We discussed changes to our website, our store layout, and even our dress code to reflect and shape the evolution and maturation of our brand. You may be familiar with the term “SWOT analysis,”–the assessment of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to a business–and its application. While it sounds like just marketing-nerd talk, these kinds of analyses are important to revisit periodically.
During our brainstorming session, a valued associate proposed the idea that our competitors aren’t just local jewelers who are competing for the same customers as us, but rather, anyone selling luxury goods. This could hypothetically open up a whole new can of competitive worms, ranging from designer handbags to luxury vehicles and top-of-the-line home workout machines. Yet, I remember feeling as though I couldn’t quite agree with this ideology–something about it just didn’t resonate with me. After months of wondering why I couldn’t agree with the notion that Louis Vuitton, Peloton, and Porsche were our competitors, I think I’ve finally figured it out.
In the wake of COVID-19, the entire economy is poised to shift in ways that will affect every single American for years to come. At New Gild Jewelers, we’ve had very real conversations about what that’s going to look like for us as individuals as well as an entity. We face a unique challenge as a non-essential business in that we cannot open our doors until it is safe, per CDC and government recommendations. This poses an added challenge to the way we do business, because so much of what we do is intangible–it’s not a certain type of metal or gemstone, it’s not a particular design or a logo, and it’s certainly not the name recognition of a Louis Vuitton handbag. Subsequently, it’s a challenge for us to put together an expanded “shop” page on our website and call it a day. We can’t take photos of or create a synopsis for what we do, because what we do and what we make are two different things.
During times of economic challenge, spending on luxury goods tends to decline. Discretionary income is harder to come by, and overall spending on status symbols is reduced. It checks out–I’m certainly not spending money on things I don’t absolutely need, let alone luxury cars or designer handbags. But here’s why I can’t seem to lump New Gild Jewelers into that same category: what we do doesn’t cost money, what we make costs money.
I’ll repeat that. What we do doesn’t cost money, what we make costs money.
We make custom jewelry.
We do something completely different. Here at New Gild Jewelers, we do love, passion, empathy, desire, family, self-discovery, growth, healing, empowerment…these intangible products are simultaneously free and absolutely priceless. We’ve never positioned ourselves as a status symbol, and we’ve never encouraged our customers to spend money for the sake of spending money. As such, people don’t come to us in order to prove their wealth, they come to us to find pieces of themselves.
Our process is a journey of introspection and empowerment that can’t be replicated anywhere else. It’s the result of building a family more than building a business–we are intimately involved in the lives of our customers, our employees, and our community, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re family.
With this sense of family and purpose in mind, I feel more confident in my initial aversion to the proposal of an expanded competitive landscape. How, when our purpose isn’t inherently capitalistic, can we level ourselves with companies whose purpose is purely capitalistic? Having a community who turns to you for a sense of belonging cannot possibly just be a luxury good–it’s a necessity. What we make is a luxury good. What we do is a human need. We are building the bridges between people as they are and who they will become, whether it’s through a union to their partner, the mourning of a loved one, the commemoration of an achievement, or the simple act of being alive.
