More male customers for Pandora after opening online stores

Danish jewelry company Pandora is happy with its ecommerce sites, as the expansion online has helped it capitalize on something a lot of men struggle with: buying gifts. Ever since it launched an online store in the United Kingdom two years ago, the company has seen an increase in male customers.

That’s what CEO Allan Leighton told Bloomberg after his company announced its Q3 2014 financial results. Sales in the United Kingdom grew by 35.1% compared to the same period last year and the company reached its highest revenue and EBITDA in any quarter to date.

70% of jewelry customers is men
The proportion of men buying at Pandora is typically 35 to 40 percent of total purchases, but when it’s gift-buying season this percentage can be as much as 70 percent. “Online for us, as we develop it, is going to be a really powerful tool,” said Leighton. “Most men are hopeless at buying gifts. We actually get a bit embarrassed going into jewelry stores.”

Pandora now has ecommerce sites in seven European countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Austria, Poland and Italy. At some stage, Leighton says, the company will expand its ecommerce business to the majority of its markets. Its jewelry is sold in more than 80 countries on six continents through approximately 9,800 points of sale. According to the CEO, Pandora’s ecommerce sites aren’t cannibalizing sales from the physical stores, while the increased proportion of male shoppers makes it “even more incremental.”

Pandora was founded in 1982 and is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. The company is famous for its customizable charm bracelets. The lion’s share of the 9,000 people worldwide that are working for Pandora are located in Thailand, where Pandora manufactures its jewelry.