Redundancies as John Greed stops selling Pandora online

Lincoln-based independent jewellery retailer John Greed has restructured the business after it stopped selling Pandora Jewellery online.

As previously reported, the company said it was ending its retail and online relationship with Pandora, but were committed to “saving jobs wherever possible”.

Some 22 people have since been made redundant which John Greed told The Lincolnite was a “really tough and emotional thing to do”.

The company sold its last item of Pandora Jewellery on its website at the end of March. John Greed is still in negotiations with Pandora regarding them leasing the High Street building.

John Greed in his workshop in Lincoln. Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite

Owner John Greed told The Lincolnite: “At the end of March we sold our last item of Pandora Jewellery on our website. It was a big decision for us to stop selling Pandora online, but we feel it was right for us and our future.

“In the end we sadly had to make 22 people redundant, which for a family business is a really tough and emotional thing to do, especially when some of these employees have been with us from the start, but we needed to adapt in order to survive.

“We are now well placed to focus on our own brand, John Greed, other exciting brands such as Nomination, Thomas Sabo, Swarovski and others we have in the pipeline. In a way, Pandora overshadowed anything else in the business, so we are really keen and looking forward to seeing what we can do by giving these brands and others our full focus.

“We are still in negotiations with Pandora in regards them leasing our High Street building, which would allow them to continue with the current Pandora store after our franchise ends. We are also in negotiations with other parties as regards the use of our building, so we will have to see what happens.

“We are still in discussions with Pandora about collaborating on another project which capitalises on the skills we have developed within other parts of our business, notably engraving jewellery. We engraved 100,000s of Pandora charms through our own website and they were so impressed with our quality that they are now very keen to work with us on some sort of collaborative project, so watch this space for when we have something confirmed.”

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