Women prefer the gift of necklaces; men typically spend more money on jewelry than women.
Utrecht, the Netherlands - Nearly seven out of ten people in the Netherlands wear jewelry and watches, with some 20 per cent of the Dutch – and particularly women – owning more than 15 different pieces. Lovers of watches and jewelry can now shop to their hearts’ content at bol.com, as today sees the launch of the online retailer’s latest specialist store Jewelry & Watches. The new store has an assortment of some 25,000 different jewelry pieces, watches and sunglasses for women, men and children.
A study* shows personal taste, style and price to be the key deciding factors in any purchase of jewelry and watches, and bol.com’s Jewelry & Watches store has easy search options to help shoppers find just the right piece to fit their taste, fashion style and budget. Brands on offer include such well-known names as TOV Essentials, Casio, Ti Sento Milano, Supertrash and Citizen.
Customers already come to bol.com for a wide range of lifestyle products, including comprehensive ranges of beauty products, household items and cookware. With jewelry, watches and sunglasses now also on offer, bol.com will provide even more inspiration and choice to help customers find just the right gift – ideal for last-minute shoppers still looking for the best Mother’s Day gift ideas, for instance. Of course, the new store also offers customers the service they’re used to from bol.com, including secure payment, a selection of delivery options, a warranty service and the promise of next-day delivery for items ordered before 11.00pm on working days.
Jewelry & Watches stores also accessible to other businesses
A significant 80% of the Dutch population buys jewelry every year, with some 16% of them spending over €100 on average and with the majority buying jewelry without their purchase being prompted by any special occasion. Customers like browsing and comparing, and bol.com is opening its Jewelry & Watches store to other businesses – with or without webstores – to offer customers even more convenience and choice in terms of assortment, price and availability. Businesses can make their range available online to bol.com’s over 4.5 million customers in the Netherlands and Belgium, enabling them to expand their catchment area and generate more income. Since 2011, over 4,000 businesses have started selling through bol.com, adding over 1 million items to the total product offering. The jewelry, watches and sunglasses range looks set to undergo a similar expansion over the next couple of months.
Inspiration and trends
Michel Schaeffer, bol.com’s Marketing Director, comments: “In addition to offering a broad range of items, we want to help our customers make the right choice when looking for a piece of jewelry, a watch or pair of sunglasses. And so we feature inspiration pages and information about trends as well as easy search options for price, material, types of stone, styles and themes. We’ve developed guidance on sizes to help customers find the right size for rings, for example. It’s all about supporting our customers in making just the right choice for them.”
44% of people might have family heirloom melted down
Nice to know in the run-up to Mother’s Day: women prefer receiving a necklace as a gift. And mothers are right to have high expectations, as men typically spend more than twice as much as women on jewelry – over €200 a year. Women typically buy jewelry for themselves (79%), whereas men mostly spend their money on their partners (63%). The study found that the main reasons cited for wearing jewelry – after practical reasons for watches (30%) – were emotional value (22%) and completing an outfit (21%). And although the emotional value of a piece would appear to be important, some 44% of Dutch people would still consider having a family heirloom melted down.
* A representative study of 568 Flemish and 1,000 Dutch people, April 2014, conducted by research agency Multiscope and commissioned by bol.com.