The first wave of pre-sale promotions for the 2023 Double 11 Shopping Festival, including platforms like Tmall and JD.com, has been underway for four to five days. Some industries have shown good performance, such as the gold and silver jewelry retail sector.
According to data provided by Tmall, the transaction volume of pearl products on the first day of the Double 11 pre-sale period increased by over 450% compared to the same period last year. Tmall provided data on several brand merchants: the sales of single pearl necklaces promoted by “Edison Pearl” exceeded millions of yuan on the first day of pre-sale; the transaction volume of “Pearl Queen” doubled compared to the same period last year, and the transaction volume of “Ruan Shi Pearl” almost quadrupled.
These three brands sell mainly high-quality freshwater and saltwater pearl jewelry, with most of their products priced between 300 and 500 yuan. The pricing for saltwater pearl jewelry from Japan and Tahiti can reach around 2,500 yuan, and some pearl jewelry with materials like K gold and gemstone inlays can even exceed 5,000 yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.
It is worth noting that the shipping locations for “Edison Pearl” and “Ruan Shi Pearl” are both in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province. Zhuji, a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Shaoxing, is the world’s largest production and sales base for freshwater pearls. Official statistics show that Zhuji’s pearl product sales exceeded 40 billion yuan in 2022.
Moreover, the majority of online pearl sales in China also come from this region. Zhang Yina, the director of the Consumer Market Big Data Laboratory of the Ministry of Commerce, provided data at the “2023 Pearl Development Forum” held in Zhuji in May 2023: the online sales of gold and pearl industries have shown a trend of regional concentration, with Shenzhen accounting for nearly half of the online gold sales and Shaoxing accounting for 43.2% of online pearl sales.
It is worth noting that some leading pearl companies are also located in Shenzhen. The aforementioned “Pearl Queen” brand is one of them, specializing in K gold pearl jewelry. Some of their products also include ruby inlays, placing more emphasis on design compared to pearl jewelry produced in Shaoxing. Data from the “2023 Pearl Development Forum” shows that leading pearl companies in Shaoxing and Shenzhen account for a combined 61.3% of online pearl sales.
The active performance of the pearl category during the 2023 Double 11 pre-sale period is also a result of the overall digital transformation of the pearl industry. According to a report on the Chinese jewelry market by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), a professional e-commerce team has been cultivated in Xinchangle Village of Shanyahu Town in Zhuji, and the online sales of this village exceeded 4 billion yuan in 2022. As of the end of 2022, there were accumulated 25,000 entrepreneurs who have come to Shanyahu Town, including more than 3,000 livestreaming hosts who reside there.
“Demi Pearl,” originally an industry fastener, has actively transformed in recent years and has also opened a flagship store on Tmall. “More and more young consumers are becoming interested in pearls through livestreaming and influencer recommendations, driving growth in pearl sales,” Demi Pearl said. “This year, we focused on livestreaming, and the transaction volume more than doubled compared to the same period last year.”
In fact, the pearl market has been very hot since the beginning of 2023. As reported by Interface News, as of the end of May 2023, the transaction volume of pearls at the largest pearl trading mall in Zhuji, Huadong International Jewelry City, reached about 23.2 billion yuan. According to official statistics from Zhuji, the total sales of pearl products, both online and offline, reached 25 billion yuan by the end of May 2023, surpassing 60% of the total sales in the entire year of 2022.
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