Threads Styling, an online personal-shopping service based in London with a presence on both WhatsApp and WeChat, said the communication tools have helped its fine jewelry business increase in recent years. And while its average fine jewelry sale online is 3,000 to 4,000 pounds ($3,734 to $4,978), Alyse Chirumbole, the company’s director of fine jewelry and watches, said established clients have used WhatsApp to buy high jewelry worth what she described as “millions.”
Nouf Alzamil, who works in technology and lives in Saudi Arabia, has been shopping with Threads Styling since 2012; she said she now makes most of her fashion and jewelry purchases through the platform, messaging her personal shopper “once a week, or more” and buying fine jewelry “four or five times a year.”
In 2019, her Threads personal shopper helped her to buy a Patek Philippe watch that wasn’t available locally; now, she said, she is likely to be inspired by styled jewelry shoots and selections of “trending” items that Threads posts on social media.
“Probably 60 percent of the time I buy something directly because Threads suggested it; the other 40 percent of the time, I have seen something I like, and I’ll ask my shopper to source it,” she said in a phone interview. Recently, she said, she bought a necklace by Loquet, as well as jewelry from Shay and Kamyen, two brands that she discovered on Threads.
“I definitely think Covid accelerated digital shopping among my friends,” she said. “In Saudi Arabia, we don’t have as many options for shopping in person, plus nobody wants to spend a lot of time indoors anymore. So it’s good to have someone who can discover new brands and inspire you.”
She said that she is happy to buy fine jewelry based on pictures and videos, although “anything £20,000 or above, I would want to see in person.”
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