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Supporting the UK Jewelery Industry

The British shopper is a strange beast. It seems that their love affair with high street shopping may have peaked this year yet our trends to shopping on the web look to be increasing even further. Recent statistics released suggest they are far more likely to buy on the internet than their European or even American cousins. The irony though is that although the UK is benefiting from an internet sales boom, UK manufacturers continue to struggle.

It is predicted that this year there will be bumper on line sales in the UK of over ?4 billion pounds which is in stark contrast to high street retail sales which have a taken a bit of a knock. On line shopping is growing some 26 times faster than the High Street with half the UK, some 21 million people choosing to shop for Xmas presents on the internet with an average spend of ?220.

While there are undoubtedly some excellent quality imported goods there are equally as many poor quality, poor value goods. A good example in this area is in the manufacture of jewelery and the UK market has been flooded with cheap foreign rubbish, much of which comes from the far east and is probably produced in less than desirable working conditions. The jewellery is usually of the costume variety, the quality is not great, so it won?t last, and the materials used are cheap and can produce allergic reactions.