Dear friends and clients of our family business!
The Corona virus has changed the world but we hope that you are well and not too worried. We see this crisis as an opportunity instead of a disaster. We now have to live with a global pandemic and make the best out of this situation. Everyone at Stephan is fine, and so are the people in the Idar-Oberstein area. We can only encourage you to visit us. It is safe here.
For the past 8 weeks, the entire world was locked-up and we were getting bored. We started to look at our current sales and marketing strategy and came up with some ideas on how to enhance our customer experience.
We have launched on Instagram: #stephangems has become a gallery of gems, carvings, concepts, and designs – all 100% Stephan DNA! We are working without the help of an agency, using the resources of our creative team. This means that all products, artwork, ideas, texts, and photos are made in house!
We are a global and a local player at the same time!
We are expanding our regional shows this year to be as close as possible to our markets. Thanks to our offices in China, India and USA we are capable of doing regional trade shows without too much travel. Depending on the developments around Covid19, we will be at:
EPHJ Geneva, Palexpo: Sep 15-18.
Intergem, Idar-Oberstein, Oct 2-5.
JIS, Miami Beach, Convention Center: Oct 13-16.
Gemworld, Munich, Mineralientage: Oct 30 – Nov 1st.
Jaipur, JECC, Dec 19-22.
We already know that 2020 is going to be a challenging year for all of us and our plan is to remain open until December 22nd. However, the factory will run with limited capacity during the summer, so please make sure to give us enough time for production and place your orders as early as possible.
There is always an opportunity. Let’s act, not react!
Please be assured that gems, jewelry, watches, knives, pens, and many other luxury products are coming back. We have sold gems every single day this year. Despite of a drop of 50% of our sales this quarter, we are seeing all markets come back and some products are performing better than before.
Yes, the market is terrible in many, many areas, but there is always an opportunity. Our cameo and turquoise sales in Asia and Europe have peaked last month, online sales grew rapidly around the globe, TV shopping celebrated a renaissance (totally social distanced), and many clients have started to push new collections to bring back sales.
Be well! Stay safe! And come back strong!
On behalf of the entire Stephan Team, we are sending lots of love from Germany!
Kathrin & Bernd
#stephanfamily
