Hadaya Jewellery.
The owner and designer of Hadaya jewellery is Baruch Hadaya.
Hadaya was born in Israel and grew up there, learning the culture and language. Throughout his journey of deciding what to do with his life he ended up having an amazing passion for jewellery designing and manufacturing. It was not easy to make a living from it in the beginning as he did not quite find the gap in the market. Hadaya did not give up though as he believed one day he would be successful.
over the years he designed many different types of jewellery and by asking for peoples opinions on the pieces he gained a knowledge of what most people like and would want to wear. With this knowledge he managed to add something a little extra to find that gap in the market.
Although mainly working in silver, he also offers jewellery hand made in copper and gold to cater for everyone. What makes his jewellery different from anyone else is that he offers personalised hand engraving done by himself. This engraving is done in Hebrew which is what makes it even more special, especially for tourists visiting Israel. This was the gap in the market he needed.
His shop is situated in the middle of the old city of Jerusalem, a very popular tourist destination, which is to his advantage for sales. He also makes so much effort to get to know his customers before they make a sale, I know this because I was a customer when I was there. I spoke to him about myself wanting to go into the jewellery field and he explained how long it took for him to get where it is and how many mistakes he had to make and that was a big eye opener. By speaking and communicating with each individual customer he gathered information over the years to cater for everyone and to come up with the type of jewellery he sells.
He even offers a special that the first person to buy something from his shop will get a 50% discount on the first item sold. People in Israel take this so seriously and almost every night people do an ‘all nighter’ and camp outside his shop to make sure they are the first person there at 5am when he opens. I did this twice, its am amazing experience sitting alone in the old city watching people walk up and down in the early hours to the western wall and watching the sunrise. I still remember seeing his huge smile on his face as it makes him so happy to see customers willing to camp outside his stall to purchase an item at a discount. This to him meant the world as it shows him how much his customers love and want his jewellery.
Although his work is very “commercial” in a way and the designs are not too complicated, they sell really quickly. Personally I think its because of the personalised engraving and also because its in Hebrew. He has a book in his stall with different sayings and prayers for sisters, brothers, friends ect, so everyone can choose their saying that they want at no extra cost.
To me his personalised style would be the hammered texture as almost all of his jewellery has the hammered finish. You can see that his inspiration comes for the Israeli culture and tourist destinations as he caters for tourists mainly. And example of this would be his ring where he pierced out the shape of Jerusalem.
Before I started jewellery I used to think his jewellery was quite pricey but now having studied jewellery for almost three years I understand the amount of labour that’s put into jewellery and the cost of silver and even the amount you would pay an engraver here in cape town. I know see that his jewellery is definitely affordable and I even find it hard to believe he does so well as apparently he’s the only jeweller making the jewellery and doing all the engravings himself. I also don’t know how he manages doing it all alone because he gets so many orders, I thought he actually had the jewellery cast but he says each piece is handmade and unique so I presume over the years he had become extremely fast with manufacturing.
Here are some examples of the type of jewellery he sells: you can see that he has a design style of creating a hammered texture one each piece. You can also see his main theme is Israel and Jerusalem.
Prices are as follows (incl engraving) rings $52, bangles $86 heart pendants $63 mens bangle $200
A lot of South Africans who want similar hadaya looking jewellery come to me to manufacture it as they dont want to have to ship it down and I sell so much of it, especially to shops like the jewish museum. And I can see how they sell so quickly and this has taught me so much about what people want to buy. I can see that people like unusual looking unique jewellery but they prefer to buy something that’s simple and not too unique , something that they know everyone will like and comment on.
Hadaya has the best way to market himself, word of mouth. He is so well known that everyone who goes to Israel knows they have to make a stop at his shop, especially tour groups or Israel programs where students come to Israel for a few months or years at a time.
Even if people haven’t heard of him he has the best position for his shop as he is right by the western wall so people have to actually walk past his shop and there aren’t many shops around so tourist want to buy and his shop stands out as there aren’t any similar shops around him.
overall i feel that Hadaya has done extremely well as he works for himself which puts him under so much pressure to design and manufacture, yet he still has a smile on his face everytime a customer enters his shop.
i find his work methods extremely motivating and i hope i can apply the smae concept when i go into the industry on day.
Bibliography: http://oneofakind-store.com/Yeshiva-in-GoldFilled_c3.htm
http://www.oneofakind.co.il/category.aspx?tid=1
