How I Purchased And Maintained The Legacy Of An 87-Year Old Jewelry Brand
My name is Albert Bensimon and I am the owner of Grahams Jewellers. Founded by the Grahams brothers back in 1932, the two brothers shared a huge passion for high-quality diamonds, gemstones, and Swiss watches along with exceptional customer service, something they were eager to provide the South Australian community with when they opened up their first boutique.
Following the success of our other jewellery company, Shiels Jewellers, my wife Nyra and I purchased Grahams Jewellers from the Grahams family in 1999. Keeping the original name from when the business was established, we are proud to say that a passion for high-quality jewellery and watches as well as exceptional customer service continues to be the foundation that Grahams was built upon over 87 years ago.
From one store run by two brothers in the local Adelaide community, Grahams Jewellers now employs over 70 staff across our 5 South Australian stores and at our bustling head office that serves as a hub for our online store which now makes up around 20% of our total annual revenue.
However, despite the growth of online in the past decade or so, brick and mortar stores remain a very important part of our business and we now have shop fronts in many of South Australia’s most popular shopping malls including the Myer Centre in Adelaide’s CBD as well as the suburban Westfields Marion, West Lakes, and Tea Tree Plaza.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I was born in Cairo, Egypt to a family of Jewish and French descent. We would then make the move to Sydney, Australia where I would undertake my primary and secondary schooling. Upon graduating, I would then obtain a degree in Marketing. In 1969 I married my wife Nyra and we set off on a working holiday in Europe before settling in Canada where I worked as a marketer in the pharmaceutical and computer software industries.
Following a 7-year stint in Canada, Nyra and I returned to Australia where we settled in Adelaide, South Australia. I have always had an interest in fine jewellery and watches, so it is then I decided to combine my passion for jewellery with my marketing experience selling pharmaceuticals and computer software into a full-time career. In 1977, I purchased Shiels Jewellers, a small jewellery and giftware store in the Adelaide Central Market that had been run by local Adelaide man, Jack Shiels and his wife since 1945.
I've been working in the jewellery business for over 40 years now and you might wonder how a diamond could still excite me? But some of them are just so radiant. It’s like seeing a fantastic movie for the first time or reading a great book you can’t put down.
Seeing a hole in the market I quickly expanded the product range to include more precious jewellery such as gold, silver, diamonds, and gemstones. I also stopped selling the gift lines to establish a reputation for Shiels that was focused on quality, value, and range, particularly when it came to diamond jewellery.
During my travels, particularly in Montreal and Toronto, Canada, I also noticed that more and more brands were opening up stores in suburban shopping malls-with great success. So, taking a bit of a gamble, I opened the first Shiels store in Marion, the Westfield Group’s first shopping center to open in South Australia.
I then followed wherever Westfield went until I had over 10 stores. Following the success of this, I purchased Grahams with ambitions to nurture the original owners’ values for quality and service.
Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.
Since the early days, something that has set Grahams apart from other businesses is that we were one of the first jewellers in Australia to begin selling gold by the gram. This approach not only allowed us to provide South Australians with the best quality but also gave us the ability to provide our customers with the best value.
We also employ a dedicated buying team to ensure that those values for quality at the best price are upheld. Consisting of a diamond buyer, a gemstone buyer, a gold and silver buyer, a branded diamonds buyer, and a watch buyer, our buying team travels to all ends of the globe to find the most exceptional diamonds, colored gemstones, pearls, gold, silver, watches and more. Each stone and the metal setting are carefully hand-selected and the final product undergoes a rigorous quality assurance process.
What makes our pieces special is not just their beautiful designs or stunning raw materials used for them, but also the amount of craftsmanship that goes into producing every single piece. All of Grahams’ pieces are made by jewellery artisans who lovingly sculp each design and see it through to the finished product.
Describe the process of launching the business.
Something that sets Grahams apart from a lot of other jewellers is our range. Since taking the helm back in 1999 it has also been our mission to offer our customers one of the most diverse ranges of jewellery and watches.
We also stock some of the world’s most well-known brands including Memoire, TAG Heuer, and Longines, Tissot, Daniel Wellington, Seiko, G-Shock, Citizen, Thomas Sabo, Tommy Hilfiger, and Michael Kors. We are incredibly proud to offer customers our very own diamond lines such as Luminesce Lab Grown Diamonds, Flawless Cut, and Australian Diamond.
Characterized by the heart and arrow shapes they make when they refract light, our Flawless Cut collection consists of the world’s most sublimely cut diamonds that are cut using 100 times magnification which is well-beyond industry standards.
Meanwhile, our Australian Diamond collection boasts an array of colored diamonds with hues that mirror the beautiful Australian landscape including yellow diamonds, cognac diamonds, and champagne diamonds. The collection also features a handful of pieces that contain pink diamonds mined from Western Australia’s Argyle Mine, their design was created to play into Australia’s iconic landscape.
We are also one of the very few Australian jewellers producing lab-created diamonds through our line, Luminesce Lab Grown Diamonds. Lab-grown diamonds are the same as regular diamonds except for how they are produced.
Man-made diamonds are not mined but are rather produced in a controlled laboratory setting that involves exposing a diamond seed to carbon-rich chemicals as well as extreme heat and temperature. These diamonds are proving to be quite popular among our customers because not only is it more eco-friendly, but it also gives them a chance to own a bigger and brighter diamond for a fraction of the price.
Aside from diamonds and watches, Grahams also houses one of the biggest collections of natural colored stones in the state. Not only does our gems collection consist of classic stones such as emeralds, sapphires, rubies, and pearls, but also some of the more unique varieties including citrine, morganite, and aquamarines, opals, and tanzanite that are exclusively mined in Tanzania.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
After 23 years at the helm, I stepped down as managing director of Grahams in 2013 and handed of the reigns to my son Toby Bensimon. Under the careful guidance of Toby, we were able to follow the many retailers venturing into the e-commerce market by launching grahamsjewellers.com.au. Since making the move to digital, we have been able to grow our business tremendously and have found a whole new audience to discover our product.
We also researched some of our key demographics and their interests, personality traits, as well as their motivations. We were then able to utilize this information to create a digital strategy that would allow us to better connect with our customer base online and in person.
This led to us developing a paid social media advertising strategy that was centered around advertisements that are targeted to audiences created with a profile of the persona’s demographic, psychographic,s and motivations.
We also undertook a content audit so that could gain a better understanding of how well it aligned with our ideal customer and brand as well as what improvements could potentially be made. We also developed an organic content strategy that focused on gaining traffic through online written content, social media management as well as user-generated content such as online reviews.
Don’t be afraid of failure. We are taught in school that mistakes are how we learn and it is nowhere more evident than in the business world. It may take time for things to come to fruition, but if you persevere and work hard it is achievable.
This, combined with our hugely-popular brick and mortar stores and our fantastic range is what keeps Grahams customers coming back for more. We are also continuously looking for ways that can make it more convenient for customers to shop with our brand, whether it's through third-party platforms like Westfield Direct and click and collect which covid has turned into a necessity for many businesses. Under Toby’s direction, we also launched the specialty timepiece website, Watch Depot which is quickly growing and gaining a lot of momentum online.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
Following over 80-plus years in business, Grahams Jewellers is a massively successful and profitable brand with great prospects for the future. We are keen to expand our digital footprint through our online store and existing social channels while also continuing to explore other avenues that we can potentially dip our toes in to expand our business. With many brands investing a great amount of time behind influencers and platforms like TikTok, it is something that we are very eager to potentially get behind.
However, even though we are shifting a lot of our focus to web and digital, brick-and-mortar stores remain a priority. Along with Shiels, we have ambitions to have over 100 jewellery stores across Australia. We are also excited about the prospect of moving into other markets with our online store. We are excited to see our other sites flourish, especially our newly-launched specialty websites Silver Chic and Luminesce Lab Grown Diamonds.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
The retail market is constantly evolving, so it is important to keep your eye on the ball and keep up with new trends. Particularly, when it comes to technology. This mentality was instrumental in helping us navigate the pandemic when so many other businesses were struggling.
Within the first few days of South Australia’s lockdown, we had completely altered the way we did business and began to ramp up our online presence, and invested more in digital.
This was a huge gamble, but it paid off considerably and our websites only continue to grow. Two years ago, our marketing and digital teams only had four employees and most of the work was outsourced. Now, at the tail-end of the pandemic, we have over a dozen team members in these departments and a majority of the work is done in-house.
Another thing I think is advantageous in business is passion. I've been working in the jewellery business for over 40 years now, and you would think that I've seen so many diamonds that how could a diamond possibly excite me? But some of them are just so radiant and beautifully cut. It’s like seeing a fantastic movie for the first time or reading a great book you can’t put down. So it's nice that even after 50 years in the business, I still get excited by it all.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
We are so fortunate to have been able to partner with so many great businesses over the years who help us achieve our goals. We work with platforms like Google and Facebook to conduct a lot of our digital advertising, while our e-commerce websites are all powered by Magento. We utilize Klayvio for our email marketing and Lasso for our online catalogs.
In the future, we will be shifting our e-commerce websites to Shopify. This is largely due to the simplicity that their platform offers. Unlike other platforms that require the assistance of web developers to make even minor changes on your site, Shopify requires minimal coding which ensures a seamless transition whenever changes are made.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
Life is all about expanding your knowledge, not just in business but on a whole range of topics. So, there’s nothing quite like sitting down and devouring a good book. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction book, I’m always on the lookout for my next great read.
The same goes for podcasts which are certainly not few and far between anymore. In 2020, we took part in an episode of The Jewellery Industry Network’s, The Jewellers Podcast where we spoke about navigating business in the middle of a pandemic.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Think about the customer and their needs. An ideal business is meant to create a hole in the market. So when we started, the first thing we wanted to establish was what problems we would be solving for our customers, and for us, it was providing them with a more diverse range at competitive prices.
My second piece of advice for those starting in business is to not be afraid of failure. We are taught in school that mistakes are how we learn and it is nowhere more evident than in the business world. It may take time for things to come to fruition, but if you persevere and work hard it is achievable. Even if you don’t see huge results from the beginning.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We are always open to expanding our team and are often advertising new opportunities at our head office and at our five store locations for people looking to advance their career at a family-owned and operated South Australian business.
We have robust teams in a whole range of blooming industries including Marketing, Retail, Web Sales and E-Commerce, Buying and Merchandising as well as Finance. If you have a love for jewellery, a passion for customer service, and a desire to progress in the accessories world, we strongly encourage you to apply for a position at Grahams. You can contact us here.
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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