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HEARTS ON FIRE SEEKS RETAIL PARTNERS FOR NEXT STEPS IN ITS BRANDED STORES EXPANSION PLAN | May 23, 2012 (0 comments)
Boston, MA—Becoming a retailer is a key benchmark for a luxury brand. All the big global brands—Hermes, Gucci, Prada, and so forth—have their own branded shops. So do jewelry designers David Yurman, Erica Courtney, Steven Lagos and Judith Ripka. Now Hearts On Fire is advancing its place in the retail brigade with an aggressive expansion plan that calls for opening up to 15 more of its branded retail stores by the end of next year, and the company is looking for retail jeweler partners to collaborate on those stores.
In a slightly different take on the traditional business model for a company store, the Boston-based diamond company will open stores only in conjunction with a local retail partner. Its first U.S. location, in the Borgata casino in Atlantic City, NJ, opened in 2008 in collaboration with Harvey and Maddie Rovinsky, owners of Bernie Robbins Fine Jewelers with four stores in the Philadelphia suburbs and at the New Jersey shore. Its second, which opened last week, is in the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and is collaboratively owned with Cliff and Darlene Miller of MJ Christensen Diamonds.
“The reason we want to go with local retailers is not just because of our integrity but because we want a local presence. We want a retail ambassador who is part of the community, active in the community, involved with local charities, and so forth. We want to be a local brand, not just a global one,” said CEO Glenn Rothman in an interview with The Centurion.
The new Las Vegas store marks the start not just of HOF’s aggressive expansion plan, but also of its new look. “It’s game-changing, not like any other jewelry store in the world,” said Rothman. Designed by 8 Inc., the firm behind the Apple store concept, the new Hearts On Fire boutiques feature interactive displays, a “community table” for trying pieces on, and digital multimedia presentations.
The communal table in the center of the Hearts On Fire store in Las Vegas is interactive for customers and evokes the feeling of a dressing room.
“We’ve had this concept [in mind] since 2007 or 2008,” Rothman told The Centurion. “We actually were lucky for the global financial slowdown, or we would have gone out with this in 2009. But the slowdown forced us to do more research, and get more input as to what actually goes on in a retail store. We went back to the drawing board.”
What goes on in a retail jewelry store isn’t much fun, says Rothman. He’s not the first to make that observation, either—a landmark study conducted by the Diamond Promotion Service in 2006 had already determined the retail jewelry shopping experience wasn’t much fun for most consumers, and there was a huge disconnect between what jewelers thought and what consumers wanted. But Hearts On Fire experience, however, is designed to break down traditional jewelry store barriers and improve the customer experience through the flow of the store.
“Women experience a store differently than men,” observed Rothman. “Women go first to our jewelry boxes and second to our [digital] knowledge wall,” he said, referring to display elements in the store. Men, on the other hand, go to the digital wall first.
Digital media is not new to Hearts On Fire. Videos and animated films have been employed for a long time to introduce the brand and educate consumers. Watch some here.
The digital education wall in the new Hearts On Fire store in Las Vegas typically is the first destination for male shoppers.
HOF’s U.S. expansion plan is based entirely on availability in choice malls. The company has a very close relationship with Simon Properties, a leading U.S. mall developer that owns such key properties as Copley Place in Boston, the King of Prussia Mall near Philadelphia, PA, and Lenox Square in Atlanta, GA.
“Simon was wowed by our new concept,” says Rothman. “They said it was the first new thing they’ve seen in the [jewelry] category.” At the annual International Council of Shopping Centers conference last week in Las Vegas, Simon co-hosted a reception with HOF in the new Forum Shops store. Rothman says the reception got the company exposure to every major mall they’re interested in.
“The spaces that become available will drive our asset allocation,” he says. He has a list in mind, but it may not happen in the order he initially planned; that’s up to real estate availability. As desirable spaces become available in the malls he’s targeted, HOF will then go to the retailers in the area with the opportunity to be the partner owner. Not all will be interested or willing to make the financial commitment, he says, but Rothman maintains all retailers in the area will be offered an equal opportunity to be the partner.
He cites as an example an upcoming store in Copley Place, which will be run by the Green family of Hartford, CT’s Lux, Bond & Green. “It was offered to others as well,” he says. “We don’t want to be exclusive, we want to be inclusive.”
“The first six to 10 Hearts On Fire stores will offer the early adopters an opportunity to create huge wealth,” he told The Centurion. Once the company grows beyond 10 stores, it may then go to a franchise arrangement, but Rothman says that would be the next stage of growth as it involves intensive legal compliance for all 50 states.
While Rothman has targeted certain malls already, he’s open to other ideas. Retailers who want a Hearts On Fire store are welcome to approach the company with a suggestion; they don’t have to wait to see if a nearby mall is on the list. He will take a look and see if one they suggest meets the criteria for generating excitement and foot traffic.
As for other Hearts On Fire retailers who may feel a company-branded store will encroach on their turf and cannibalize sales, Rothman says there’s no need to worry. Historically, retailers have found that sales of a brand go up when a company store opens nearby, because advertising, marketing, and the image of the brand also increase with the company store. Prices will be the same, Rothman says, and any piece a customer sees in the branded store can be obtained and sold through by a Hearts On Fire retailer.