The European Quality Circle (EQC) is a consumer oriented organization and the first buyer group that provides retail jewelers with a portfolio of professional and educational services, designed to increase sales, improve profitability and enhance consumer confidence in the jewelry retailer and their products.
The organization was started by Antwerp-based diamantaire Eyal Atzmon, along with a group of fellow jewelry traders. They realized that their retail clients needed a stronger, competitive advantage to leverage significant growth and higher profitability in a struggling economy.
Consumers are the most vital link in our supply chain. By protecting them we sustain our industry and livelihoods.
Our goal is to prove to the consumers that EQC members are professional, care about their well-being as well as their pocketbook, maintain the highest integrity, and that the products supplied are well worth every penny spent.
Therefore EQC, while focusing on the retail sector, was ultimately created to protect and enhance consumer confidence in jewelry products
Diamond, gemstone and jewelry suppliers, manufacturers and retailers, along with their customers, are deeply aware that consumer confidence is a necessary factor for effective growth. However, the retailers have few or no practical tools at their disposal to help position themselves competitively in the market. They often lack the practical knowledge to advance consumer confidence in the retailers and their jewelry, successfully.
EQC helps its members to cultivate their prestige and recognisability, offers customized staff and management training, and assists in executing affordable and effective advertising campaigns and improving retailers’ business performance and leverage. These and other tools offered by EQC will help high-end retailers and jewelry manufacturers to quickly upgrade their business’s prestige and efficiency to the level of other popular brands, while maintaining their own name and identity.
In addition, by joining EQC, jewelers will gain access to a wide range of vital resources that are tailored to their particular needs.
These services include:
1. EQC Buyer Groups
In the current economic climate, goods are often over priced, difficult to find, and frequently come with unfavorable payment terms. By joining EQC, the jeweler or manufacturer will gain access to the EQC buying groups for diamonds, colored gemstones and finished jewelry. Power is in the numbers and the more members EQC has, the stronger our group's negotiating position is in regard to accessing fashionable, marketable goods with immediate supply, and attractive terms of pricing, payment and commission.
2. Access to the EQC virtual shop portal
While EQC members most often own and operate single jewelry storefronts, they do not need to miss out on the 24/7 sales experience. EQC offers its members the World Jewelry Center (WJC) portal, where they can create a virtual, online shop and offer their jewelry for sale, seven days a week, 24 hours a day. EQC is a virtual, international “Yellow Pages” of jewelers. This means that when a consumer searches for a local jeweler, he will not only find the virtual store but will also be directed to the storefront itself. EQC offers this as a free service to its members, bringing the customers to their doorstep, without asking for anything in return. This module is almost completed and we estimate it will be functioning by October, with the “Yellow Pages” search function ready by the end of the year.
3. Jewelry management courses
The jewelry management courses will include store and team management’s instruction, education, and hands-on qualification. These courses are given under the tutelage of international renown jewelry consultants from France.
4. Store performance analysis
Store performance analysis will include the observation of the employees’ performance, motivation, loyalty and commitment, and in-store presentation and display of merchandise. After the employees have received our professional training, they will inevitably show marked improvement in their employee performance.
5. Full-fledged diamond, colored stone, courses
These courses were developed especially for EQC by the education department of HRD Antwerp N.V., the commercial arm of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre. Staff who receive such tailored training have greater self-confidence, and are able to astutely answer customers who previously might have had more knowledge then the shop’s staff.
6. Access to EQC database
The EQC database contains a wide range of professional diamond, gemstone and jewelry suppliers in Europe, Asia, Canada, and the United States. After joining EQC, members gain access to the database to source, buy and sell goods, contact suppliers for product information, and, ultimately, also will be able to use the network to advertise and publicize their own products in their target markets.
7. Marketing communications and PR
EQC has the tools to distribute industry news through a vast and effective network that includes the international jewelry trade press; international business press; diamond, gem and jewelry trade organizations; gemological institutes and gemologists, as well as to a wide range of jewelry industry service companies.
EQC members not only gain access to these varied sources of news and information, but also may offer their own services and products through these channels.
