Pandora facing a tempest

Trollbeads collectors can breathe again... No more large core Trollbeads?
Pandora issued yesterday a profit warning for 2011 and will be repositioning the brand and cut prices.


Read the articles on:
The Guardian
The Financial Times or read attachement
Company announcement
Retail Jeweler
Professional Jeweler

Interesting, I wondered if they were overextending themselves opening all those stand alone stores. I wouldn't want them to go under though.

Hopefully all others, including Troll, will feel forced to follow suit.

Wildthing wrote:Hopefully all others, including Troll, will feel forced to follow suit.

AMEN!!! I don't own any Pandora, and will never own any, but I really would like to see TBs come back to reality and realize that most of us are not millionaires, and are truly brand loyal, except for maybe a few artisian beads. And only those most of the time because we are not able to get them in TBs...

I think it's strange that in the present economy, most companies are cutting prices, etc. and TBs has issued one price hike after another one...I am not understanding their way of thinking.

Hmmm, interesting news! I wonder if TB had an inkling of this when they came up with the UU beads? Positioning themselves to attract the Pandora customers if Pandora go out of business?

Glasgow has two Pandor concept stores, one in a very prestigious city centre location, I have never seen it look busy. I only have two Pandora beads, I thought they were more expensive than TB and didn't have the artisitic flair that TB have.

I hope TB will take this as a warning...any hype can be killed by higher prices.

A lot of private investors have lost a lot of money.

The FIH bank trading on behalf of pension investments has lost 730 millions DKK. Not good at all!

The link is in Danish
http://ekstrabladet.dk/nyheder/samfund/article1595469.ece

Interesting. They have just launched new products too - macrame bracelets that take clips and 2 new silver bracelet that take clips only and a double clip to fit two bracelets together. Maybe they will help their financial situation.

Wow! Not good at all! pay attention TB!

The Danish newspaper was beyond me but I found a source in German:
http://www.wirtschaftsblatt.at/home/boerse/binternational/482759/index.do

I think one needs to be a subscriber to read the FT, but The Guardian article is brilliant. I especially liked the quote "worst IPO in the past 12 months" and Leighton's assessment of the situation. TB, please do your homework now!

For those interested the analysis from the FT...

@Smaug, I still can't read it..?

Trolls wrote:@Smaug, I still can't read it..?

Any better?

Yes, thank you!

Molamola wrote:Interesting, I wondered if they were overextending themselves opening all those stand alone stores. I wouldn't want them to go under though.

That's exactly what I was thinking - they were trying to make their brand accessible but it would have cost a LOT of money for them to develop all those concept stores. Although I did actually think that I wouldn't mind if they went under.... lol xoxo

Maybe they are starting to get a wake-up call that the sky's not the limit as far as prices go. Oh, and then there's the flood of cheap knock-offs in discount stores and on the auction sites. This is where Trollbeads, if it doesn't also succumb to the viral proliferation of mall/concept stores, has the edge. TBs, IMO, are far superior artistically and their designs are harder to replicate (not talking about knock-offs, but about the unique, organic look of the TB designs).

I was also thinking the bubble will burst and Pandora will find themselves with empty shops once the fad wears off. I know loads of people who bought Pandora bracelets and are already tired of collecting beads. I think TB collectors are a different breed!

We have a couple of Pandora stores locally and they aren't busy when I walk by, the only benefit I see is that they offer a wider selection of non-bead jewellery in rings, earrings and watches compared to TB. I wouldn't like to see them fail completely but I am still smug in my decision to collect Troll as it is the best!

Very interesting. Especially as someone has said above that troll just keeps raising their prices. Yes I know silver has gone up in price but there isn't that much silver in those beads. Most of what you are paying for is the design. If you take your gold in for the price of the gold you will probably be surprised how little they give you. I am sure that is true of silver too.

Interesting analysis by Steffan's MD in Retail Jeweler.
See first post for link to article...

Hmmmm, not surprised but hoping this means I can add a few more pandoras to my bead collection at good prices, they do have a few nice pieces too

All I can say is, it's about time and I hope TB is paying attention.

Maybe they are - they seem to be flooding the market with the UUs - maybe they are positioning themselves to be a source of beads for Pandora owners should Pandora go out of business.

I heard the CEO of Pandora just got fired. I do have some pandoras because when I bought them it was the lowest price for silver beads with some gold on them. I have queen bee and princess and the pea for example. The sucess of troll and pandora has led to lots of imitation. The market is flooded with beads, silver and not silver. Some people are thrilled with their $3 non silver beads. Some people can only afford $3 beads. Actually that is my current status although I would never wast $3 on junk. Also like anything, people get bored and decide to buy non bead jewelry. The sky is not the limit. And with their prices going up all the time they have helped along their stagnation of sales.

Fashion moves relentlessly forward because that is the only way that the public can be made to discard perfectly usable goods in the favour of new products (apart from giving them a built in destruct mechanism).

Trends start at the high end of the market, filter down to the lowest level over a number of years, exhaust their impact and die or survive as a niche market. I would imagine that it is safer to trade in a relatively specialist market in the long-term, as Trollbeads once did, rather than to expand your operations dramatically like Pandora did.

All fads are eventually revived but only after a lengthy period of rest. The time for price increases is when you are on a rising rather than falling curve.