LorenLL
Member
- Joined
- Oct 26, 2024
- Messages
- 14
I've just returned from JMA International Jewelry Show hosted in Hong Kong last weekend. In case you are wondering, JMA International Jewelry Show is a jewellery show organised by Hong Kong Jewelry Manufacturers’ Association; unlike the September jewellery fair organised by Hong Kong Trade Development Council which is exclusive to traders, JMA jewellery show allows public entry, and that's how I got to visit this jewellery show.
The show is typically held in late November, and this year's show is from Nov 28 to Dec 1. The venue is separated into different zones, with the biggest being Fine Jewelry Zone accommodating retail sellers, while other zones being dedicated to pearls, diamonds, loose gemstones etc. (surprisingly, despite the popularity of jadeite in HK, there isn't any zone for jadeites). As you can guess, Pearl Zone is where I spent most of my time during the visit.
I attended the first two days of the show, and there are a few things I would like to share about the visit (sorry in advance for the lack of photos, as the exhibitors in Pearl Zone were more reluctant to letting people taking photos of their booths).
Firstly, the show not only has wholesalers but also jewellery manufacturers and retailers selling to both business buyers and the public. This creates an interesting scene: in one booth you could see a lady haggling for another HKD$100 discount on a piece of jewellery, while a few booths away there is a dealer buying pearls by bagful. This contrast also offers a peek into the gemstone and jewellery business, to see how gemstones are priced and handled in the trade. I highly recommend any non-business pearl lovers to pay a visit to shows of similar nature.
Secondly, there are many live-stream buyers. A lot of them. Live-stream proxy shopping is very popular in China, which is just like an online showroom except that the "seller" isn't selling their own stock but instead picking multiple items from a store (or a booth in this case), showing them through live stream for viewers to select the items they like, then buying the items on behalf of the viewers. You can easily tell who is a live-stream buyer as they always point their phone around taking live-stream videos while speaking in a very excited tone to liven up their online chatroom. They are very noisy, occupy a lot of space to set up equipments, and hog up all the good stuff for a very long time preventing other customers from buying what they want.
Thirdly, booths selling pearl strands are very popular, especially those putting up banners with names like "hanadama", "ten-yo", "madama" etc. on them. Many of these strands are PSI certified; when a customer buys a pearl strand, the seller would take out the corresponding certificate from a thick ring binder full of PSI certificates and give it to the customer. That said, sometimes having a PSI certificate doesn't mean that the strand must be a quality piece - I saw one particular cheap but definitely not hanadama grade pearl necklace being advertised as "accompanied by a PSI certificate"; when I asked the seller about the necklace, the seller assured me that it has a PSI certificate and did nothing. It wasn't until I asked to have a look at the exact certificate that he took it out and showed it to me, and as it turned out the PSI certificate only identifies the pearls as Akoya pearls without grading them (btw the necklace was gone by the next day; I wonder if the person bought it know about the "PSI certified" caveat). Another booth sells average grade pearls which all came with PSI "mini certificates", probably just for pearl identification too.
Lastly, despite sellers usually selling their jewellery at a steep discount (so much so that the show is unofficially called a "year-end clearance sale"), good stuff never comes cheap. Sellers know their stuff - sometimes a few old designs, unpopular set pieces and blemished loose pearls could be sold at a lower price, but good quality jewellery and loose pearls are just as expensive as you would buy from retailers outside the show. This is especially true for wholesalers due to the nature of their business. In addition, because there are also public visitors in the show, some exhibitors actually marked up their prices, or passing cheap pearls off as valuable pearls, banking on the customers being unknowledgeable about their purchases (the aforementioned PSI certificate caveat being one of the examples). As always, caveat emptor.
This post is much longer than I expected and thank you very much for reading. There are also photos of some of my purchases but posting them here would make the post overly long, so they would be in a reply below this post
The show is typically held in late November, and this year's show is from Nov 28 to Dec 1. The venue is separated into different zones, with the biggest being Fine Jewelry Zone accommodating retail sellers, while other zones being dedicated to pearls, diamonds, loose gemstones etc. (surprisingly, despite the popularity of jadeite in HK, there isn't any zone for jadeites). As you can guess, Pearl Zone is where I spent most of my time during the visit.
I attended the first two days of the show, and there are a few things I would like to share about the visit (sorry in advance for the lack of photos, as the exhibitors in Pearl Zone were more reluctant to letting people taking photos of their booths).
Firstly, the show not only has wholesalers but also jewellery manufacturers and retailers selling to both business buyers and the public. This creates an interesting scene: in one booth you could see a lady haggling for another HKD$100 discount on a piece of jewellery, while a few booths away there is a dealer buying pearls by bagful. This contrast also offers a peek into the gemstone and jewellery business, to see how gemstones are priced and handled in the trade. I highly recommend any non-business pearl lovers to pay a visit to shows of similar nature.
Secondly, there are many live-stream buyers. A lot of them. Live-stream proxy shopping is very popular in China, which is just like an online showroom except that the "seller" isn't selling their own stock but instead picking multiple items from a store (or a booth in this case), showing them through live stream for viewers to select the items they like, then buying the items on behalf of the viewers. You can easily tell who is a live-stream buyer as they always point their phone around taking live-stream videos while speaking in a very excited tone to liven up their online chatroom. They are very noisy, occupy a lot of space to set up equipments, and hog up all the good stuff for a very long time preventing other customers from buying what they want.
Thirdly, booths selling pearl strands are very popular, especially those putting up banners with names like "hanadama", "ten-yo", "madama" etc. on them. Many of these strands are PSI certified; when a customer buys a pearl strand, the seller would take out the corresponding certificate from a thick ring binder full of PSI certificates and give it to the customer. That said, sometimes having a PSI certificate doesn't mean that the strand must be a quality piece - I saw one particular cheap but definitely not hanadama grade pearl necklace being advertised as "accompanied by a PSI certificate"; when I asked the seller about the necklace, the seller assured me that it has a PSI certificate and did nothing. It wasn't until I asked to have a look at the exact certificate that he took it out and showed it to me, and as it turned out the PSI certificate only identifies the pearls as Akoya pearls without grading them (btw the necklace was gone by the next day; I wonder if the person bought it know about the "PSI certified" caveat). Another booth sells average grade pearls which all came with PSI "mini certificates", probably just for pearl identification too.
Lastly, despite sellers usually selling their jewellery at a steep discount (so much so that the show is unofficially called a "year-end clearance sale"), good stuff never comes cheap. Sellers know their stuff - sometimes a few old designs, unpopular set pieces and blemished loose pearls could be sold at a lower price, but good quality jewellery and loose pearls are just as expensive as you would buy from retailers outside the show. This is especially true for wholesalers due to the nature of their business. In addition, because there are also public visitors in the show, some exhibitors actually marked up their prices, or passing cheap pearls off as valuable pearls, banking on the customers being unknowledgeable about their purchases (the aforementioned PSI certificate caveat being one of the examples). As always, caveat emptor.
This post is much longer than I expected and thank you very much for reading. There are also photos of some of my purchases but posting them here would make the post overly long, so they would be in a reply below this post
), which are too big for my jewellery project, but for some reason I didn't think of that when I made the purchase. Anyway, I am keeping them because they are so pretty.
