HongKong September Jewelry Show 2019! Known as the biggest gem fair in the world, over 800 exhibitors including dealers, retailers all over the world come together during this period of time to participate. For Moltenore, we have always been attending the gem fairs, meeting with our suppliers and friends over the years, but this year, we had our first experience as an Exhibitor! While the situation in Hong Kong has been difficult, but we still gained a lot from this experience and we are excited to share it with you!
Stage 1: Moving all our inventory with secured delivery
The first step is always knowing what we want to bring to the Hong Kong Gem Fair. As a Fine Jewellery Atelier, most of our inventory are high in value, hence we do not have that many pieces to choose from.
In deciding what to bring, we considered our target audience, and the arrangement of our pieces with one another. It is always tricky to do display coloured gemstones with one another. Placing all of the same colour together might make one item stand out more than the rest, and often that's the most expensive piece that is harder to sell at the Hong Kong Gemfair. Hence we always have to think of a contrast and balance!
Insured Delivery
This is so incredibly important. Some jewelers might choose to hand carry their items with them to the Hong Kong Gem Fair, but we decided against it. While we could have also done so, the risk of losing the pieces are too high to bear. Also the best thing about third party logistics companies, they insured the exhibition itself! We paid a considerable amount for their services but its all worth having a peace of mind.
Stage 2: Pre-show Preparation in HongKong
So one of the main challenges we had pre-show was the booth setup. In order to gain access to our booth, we have to have an exhibitor pass that is either given out 1 month earlier in Hong Kong, or collection on one day prior to the start date. As none of us were in Hong Kong and they did not provide the option to mail it to Singapore, we were stuck with having to prepare all our booth setup and lighting within 1 day.
1 day before the show, rushing all the booth display & lighting
Stage 3: Opening and Managing our booth!
We were located at Level 3 of the Convention Center right at the Singapore Pavilion.
As it is our first Hong Kong Gem Fair exhibition experience, we were very modest with our decorations and opted for the smallest booth. Essentially we had 2 table showcases and one podium. On the table showcase in the picture, we displayed out bigger items like our large sapphires, cobalt spinels and coloured diamonds. The pearls were consigned from a Japanese Supplier that we have worked closely with before, even visiting their farm in Bali.
As the situation in Hong Kong was dangerous, this year there was a lack of visitors. Most buyers are middlemen themselves and business was not the best. Many companies within our pavilion closed a day or two earlier due to the lack of sales, some companies that had already paid for the booths did not even turn up to this event! We hope the situation in Hong Kong can be resolved soon. Hong Kong is one of the most important trading hubs for this industry and with the lack of stability, it leaves many of us jewelers in difficult positions trying to source of quality stone.
Our Director, Mr Tang
Our Director at our booth looking happy. While business could have been better, we were able to meet our partners, craftsman and developed better relationships with those we work with.
And with that, we have taken the opportunity to work with a Japanese South Sea Pearl Dealer to bring these amazing pearls to Singapore. We are excited to announce that we now supply South Sea Pearls wholesale to companies!
What's Next?
While we have no plans of attending another gemfair as an exhibitor any time soon, we are keen on attending Singapore's SIJA jewelry show at Marina Bay Sands and the next September Hong Kong Gemfair if things there get better. Also these are some of the events we look forward to!