The FINANCIAL — Zarapxana, the leading jewellery manufacturing company in Georgia, is working on a new collection in partnership with famous Georgian designer Irakli Nasidze.
Zarapxana also intends to broaden its chain by opening a new shop in Tbilisi by the New Year and about five more shops in the capital and regions of Georgia in 2012.
Zarapxana currently operates seven fashionable shops, out of which five are located on Tbilisi’s main streets and two of them in the cities Kutaisi and Batumi.
“We see huge potential in the country,” George Georbelidze, General Director of Zarapxana, told The FINANCIAL. “We are trying to expand our chain in Georgia and to eventually be working at full capacity here. Only after that will we think about opening our brand’s shops abroad. This will probably be after several years. Our products will soon be available in some European countries. We are not going to open our brand’s shops there, but we will have official distributors.”
“We are planning lots of novelties for New Year,” Georbelidze said. “One of them will be a new collection made in partnership with designer Irakli Nasidze. Such a project is unprecedented in Georgia. We are trying to import western jewellery design tendencies as Nasidze is living and working in Europe. A presentation of this collection is planned for New Year. We are still working on the collection and it has already attracted huge interest.”
Zarapxana has changed its strategy and the company now is oriented to all price segments of the population. The company presented some new projects a short while ago. All these resulted in increased numbers of customers.
“We offered the new service New Instead of Old about two weeks ago,” said the company’s General Director. “Within the frames of the project anyone can bring an old piece of jewellery to us and exchange it for one of our products. The project has proved to be a great success. About 1,000 individuals have already used this service during the last two weeks alone.”
“Within the programme National Projects we have announced a competition. Anyone can offer us their own jewellery designs. We have received many interesting ideas and the winner will be revealed in about two weeks. The new collection will be presented in partnership with the winner,” he explained.
Zarapxana offered the service of individual orders several years ago, but in recent times the company has improved the service significantly. It now gives several different types of possibilities to customers.
“We have our creative service,” Georbelidze said. “Retail or corporate customers can come to us with their own design for jewellery and we can then make the piece of jewellery for them. They can bring their raw materials to us or we can make them using our own. Our creative service can partially or fully help them in creating the design as well. We can create any type of design. This service is very popular not just with women but with men as well.”
Zarapxana offers a repair service for jewellery as well. The General Director says that the quality of all their services is guaranteed as Zarapxana has always been associated with high quality.
“We don’t have fixed prices for individual orders,” he said. “But I can say that prices are affordable for the average Georgian. We have a new price strategy and offer products of any price so as to be affordable for everyone. If anyone orders an individually made piece of jewellery at the Gold Market, the price won’t be much less than it would be at Zarapxana. Unlike us, however, the Gold Market cannot guarantee high quality. Unfortunately many greedy people work there, who will try to take advantage of unsuspecting customers by putting prices up unfairly, for sometimes even shoddily-made work.”
Zarapxana holds nearly 10 percent share of the jewelry market in the country according to the company. It is the oldest jewellery brand in Georgia and has the biggest chain in the country.
“We do not have one distinct competitor in the market as our service is really outstanding. We compete with the whole market. There is a price difference between us and other companies but we compensate for the high price with the high quality of the materials and design. By just looking at the jewellery everyone can recognise that it is made by Zarapxana. Such a level of awareness is similar to that of established, prominent international brands,” the General Director claims.
The price range in Zarapxana shops depends on the specific outlet. Prices per product start from 50 GEL and reach up to 20,000 GEL. Low and average segment products are sold more often, but high segment pieces are sold as well according to the company.
Zarapxana tries to keep prices as low as possible but according to world tendencies it has to set new prices four time in an year.
“Price increases daily in the world gold market,” Georbelidze said. “It changes twice a day on the London Stock Market. Prices increased significantly in 2011. We had about a 30 percent increase. But more of a raise is predicted for 2012. If an ounce of gold costs 1,750 USD today, it is expacted to reach its maximum margin of 2,000 USD by the end of the first quarter of 2012.”
Increased prices have resulted in a new tendency in the world: the common use of a material which isn’t gold or silver but contains a concentration of both these metals. Such a trend is most noticeable in the USA. Europe is more oriented at white gold. Traditionally yellow gold remains most in demand in Georgia.
One of the best sold products is wedding rings. More and more couples are choosing original designs for wedding rings over traditional ones. Making inscriptions on wedding rings is very popular as well. We can already make them not just in Latin script, but in Georgian as well.”
Zarapxana will soon have a new machine for making inscriptions which can make it not only on jewellery but on different products and materials as well.
The company claims about 8 percent increase of sales in the 10 months of 2011 compared to last year. Due to several important novelties Zarapxana plans to have a 12 percent increase by the end of 2011 and a 15 percent increase in 2012 in comparison to the results of 2011. The company is also planning to undergo a restyling process in 2012.
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