00:00 So Aaron we're just here with you at the Wensbury Bojangles, a very very new look.
00:06 Wensbury Bojangles. Yeah I know a lot. You must be chuffed, it looks fantastic. Thank you, thank you.
00:11 And for people who aren't in the know, obviously you know people in Samwell will have heard about you,
00:16 but it's not just your run of the mill kind of jewellery store trading your gold plates is it?
00:22 Talk us through why it's a bit special. Yeah well we gained our reputation in the last financial
00:28 crisis, 2007-2008, when we started publishing the actual gold prices that we paid to the British
00:36 public. You were doing a really good price weren't you, which you continue to do. Well we got on the BBC,
00:43 yourselves, the Express and Star, then we was in Trinity Mirror, the Star newspaper, I don't know
00:49 if that's still going, I think it is. Yeah we was nationally recognised and it was just worthwhile
00:55 coming to Bojangles from all different parts of the country. Well that's people would, I mean how
01:01 far have you had people travelling in? They're literally, some of them are flying in, aren't they?
01:05 Literally. Yeah we've had them fly from Ireland regularly. Yeah. So they will plan their day out
01:12 to fly to Birmingham airport. Yeah. They'll get the train and the tram up to Wensbury or get a taxi
01:18 and they fly back the same day. Yeah. So you've regularly got people travelling in the motor
01:24 like an hour, two hours, three hours plus haven't you, to come and visit you? Regularly, I mean we've got
01:28 a national customer base. Yeah. And it's every day, I mean some day we laugh about it sometimes.
01:35 Sometimes you'd think you was in the east end of London, some day. Yeah. So is your rate still a
01:41 good rate then, still better than a lot of places? Yeah, yeah. We work on a small margin and it's literally
01:48 because we're all benefiting, we're benefiting that we have the footfall to give a high rate.
01:55 Yeah. The customers are benefiting because they're supporting us and we've always had this good ethos
02:02 where we want to sort of bless the public like we did in the last financial crisis. We was heartbroken
02:10 at what these national and international campaigns were doing. They were fleecing the UK of its wealth.
02:17 Yeah. The people had gold, we was a wealthy nation and big companies from abroad were mass advertising
02:25 and giving five, ten percent of the value of the gold. We was hitting 94, 95 percent to the British
02:32 public. We've benefited and the public have benefited. So you've got a fantastic rate, you've got a fantastic
02:39 looking shop now, but also you've got some quite niche items haven't you? I mean you were just pointing
02:43 out, just talk us through like for example in the cabinet here, the one of the rings you were saying,
02:47 it's, it's, what, what, what you got that on for then? Well yeah, again the, the, the benefits are that we have
02:55 such a large footfall. Yeah. And with that footfall we have large volume, with large volume means large
03:01 business, with large business means better prices. Yeah. So we've entered into the diamond market.
03:07 And the large diamonds, that's kind of one of the specialities you do here isn't it? Yes, and this is
03:11 why it's worth people traveling a long way to come to see us. Yeah. Even coming from abroad, because
03:17 we're buying wholesale. Yeah. What traditionally would be trade onto different shops, but there's
03:25 no middleman here. Yeah. So we're buying direct off the markets, uh, internationally buying, and then
03:32 providing the products direct to the public. And as long as we got the volume, the big companies will
03:38 support us with the, with the best stock and the best supply. And the, the one ring there you were
03:43 pointing out to me earlier, you were saying somewhere like Ireland, that'd be, you'd be looking at
03:48 potentially double what you'd be charging here. Yeah. Double in Ireland and definitely double on the,
03:53 you know, the major UK high street shops. Yeah. Um, which they sort of have to do, because you know,
04:00 if you've got to put, you know, a two thousand pound ring in 50 stores, it's a lot of money you've
04:05 got to outlay and you've, you've got to return on that, on that outlay. Yeah. But, um, yeah. So if we
04:11 walk down, you've got your large diamonds. We'll show a zooming clip of a few of them in a second.
04:16 And, uh, we walked down, you've got a bit of everything going on, haven't you? These are
04:20 quite special, aren't they? These crosses, the crucifixes you've got here. Yeah. These crosses,
04:26 yeah. Again, people travel all over the country. I've helped develop a couple of the patterns on
04:31 here. We've got a couple of, um, that are directly for us. Yeah. They're our patterns.
04:39 Again, there's a, there's a whole international industry behind this. Yeah. Uh, how it's made,
04:46 how it's imported. It's not as simple as just me going somewhere and buying them. Yeah. There's the
04:52 design. There's the buying of the diamonds. There's the fluctuating price in gold, the fluctuating
04:58 price in the dollar to buy the diamonds. And these are famous. Most of them, not all of them,
05:04 I've got a little cross across the middle. Yeah. We call them kiss crosses. Yeah. And
05:09 celebrities wear them and they're quite big in Hollywood as well, actually. Yeah. They're like
05:14 glamorous, you know, Kardashian sort of style. But then we can, we cater for the small and then for
05:21 the more, uh, exuberant. So you've got, what's kind of the cheapest item here? Do you cater for
05:27 all kinds of price ranges? Yeah. Yeah. Because traditionally in the black country and around
05:33 Birmingham, we've had the jewelry quarter. We've grew up with a lot of gold. This area probably
05:38 buys more gold than anywhere else in the UK. Yeah. So it's interesting. They know their jewelry as
05:43 well. And that's where we got the Bojangles Authentic. Capital A, capital U because that's
05:51 the chemical symbol for gold and authentic because from when I was a child, I've dealt with
05:58 big importers and big wholesalers with my family. Yeah. And I've known all the original makers of
06:06 all the jewelry and the industry copies, but you never get that quality unless you get the original
06:12 makers. So that's where our gold jewelry, uh, stands apart. And like the earring collection
06:20 start from 55 pounds. Yeah. And they're, they're, they're one of our best selling thing. So if we
06:26 kind of just walk us around, we'll walk up to your window display and, um, just you would talk us
06:31 through some of these, um, if you check us through around to your window, talk us through another one
06:36 of the things there that's kind of a bit special. Like you were saying, I guess a bit with the,
06:40 the, um, crosses there, the, uh, the bands you've got in the window here, they're actually made for
06:44 you, aren't they as well? Yeah. Especially for you. These are specially crafted for us. Yeah.
06:49 They're sourced in Italy. Um, and they're actually all signed. They give us, I've helped design a
06:56 couple of patterns, but the benefit was that during lockdown, um, we had a lot more free time
07:04 and we really put a lot of research and development into these, these bangle sets and we've launched
07:10 them and they're called signature bangles. They're all made for us. They're made by one of the best
07:16 jewellery houses there is. Uh, they're all signed for us inside. They're all inscribed Bojangles.
07:23 Yeah. And these have been a great success for the company. So I'm curious, I mean, how long have you
07:28 been here now in Wensbury? A few years, isn't it? Yeah, nearly 20 years. Nearly 20 years now. I was
07:34 here on and off while I was at university. Yeah. Because my dad had the shop two doors up that he
07:39 was sort of doing part-time. Was that jewellery? Jewellery. Yeah. So, yeah. But, but he was sort of
07:45 part-time. He was at the end of his career, uh, but there was a few like big jewellery fairs we could
07:51 go to. Yeah. And he used it as a base to go to those fairs. So you, you already knew Wensbury in terms of
07:57 your dad's being based here. Yes. Um, I'm curious, you know, there must have been a point and you
08:02 thought, well, we can be in Wensbury or we could be in a big hub of a Birmingham centre or so on.
08:08 So how come you decided to stick with Wembley? Did you know that if you had the right product
08:12 and the right price, people would travel? Did you always have that confidence? Is that what it was?
08:16 Yeah. Yeah. Well, we did open two stores in the Birmingham jewellery quarter. Yeah. Because
08:23 our name was so big for gold buying. Yeah. We was buying off jewellers, we was buying off,
08:28 uh, the stalls that were in like your shopping centres. Um, we did go into the Birmingham
08:34 jewellery quarter, but Wensbury was always our heart. Yeah. It's a brilliant location for, for
08:43 anybody that's got a niche market. It's a brilliant location because of Junction 9. Yeah. You know,
08:49 Curry's, Ikea, they're famous. Yeah. And the town's had a lot of money coming lately as well,
08:55 which has also benefited the overall experience of being here. And I guess, you know, if you're
09:01 appealing to a national or even international market at the end of the day, like you say,
09:05 just off the motorway, heart of the country, and you haven't got the parking issues you have in
09:09 central Birmingham. That's a big, big positive. So yeah. The, um, the congestion charge as well,
09:15 also in Birmingham. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. What about COVID? Has that affected kind of the trade,
09:22 you know, or do you find that because it's quite niche what you're doing that you're still
09:26 not so much. It has affected the trade, but not in the way that people probably think that it did
09:32 affect it. Yeah. During COVID when we got the breaks and we could open and we could trade,
09:37 business was phenomenal for the jewellery trade. Yeah. People had so much spare cash. Yeah. You
09:43 know, they hadn't been for dinner. They hadn't been to the cinemas. They hadn't been on holiday.
09:48 Everything boomed, any kind of luxury item, cars, jewellery, watches, it boomed. But then
09:57 afterwards now it's affected a lot of the markets because there was, there was false inflation.
10:03 There was a false over demand and adjusting with that, you know, we've, we've, we've done well,
10:08 but I know a lot of people haven't done well. So would you say your business is back to where
10:13 pre COVID was or it hasn't quite got to, got to where. Yeah, we've grown. Yeah. We've grown from
10:18 COVID. Yeah. We've grown. We've had financially, you know, the best two years we've had since
10:25 COVID. Well, we wish you onwards and upwards at the Express and Start. Sounds like you're doing
10:29 all right and may that continue. Thank you.
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