Young, intelligent and sharply dressed, William Sin is a Malaysian jeweller who is currently working to develop and grow the Malaysian jewellery industry with relentless drive and an innovative flare through his aptly named boutique: Hallmark Jewellery. Age is certainly not a limitation for William, who recalls growing up within a family and a generation of jewellers. William remembers shadowing his parents (reputed jewellers) in his childhood, from whom he developed a deep interest in jewellery. After studying business management in college, William decided to pursue his passion and partook the gemology course at the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) before joining the industry at the tender age of 19 with the guidance of  experienced jewellers. William has now strongly established his company within the industry with a vast base of clientele who speak highly of him. Today, The Asian Entrepreneur has the pleasure of speaking with William on his personal story and insights on the industry in Malaysia.

In your own words what is Hallmark Jewellery?

Hallmark Jewellery is a hub for people who are looking for almost any kind of jewellery, we offer custom jewellery services to people who are more specific with what they want, and ready made jewellery to people who want something off our shelves. We have also been pioneers in the imperial jadeite jewellery industry for 3 generations now and we carry exquisite jewellery at very competitive and extremely friendly prices. All the diamonds and precious stones that are set in our pieces are handpicked by myself, and I personally oversee the production process for every single one of our jewellery. This helps us bypass many middle people and bring our finely crafted jewellery straight to retail without the retail markup that comes with most jewellery.

How did you come up with the idea of Hallmark Jewellery?

The name Hallmark Jewelley originated from the fact that every piece of jewellery that we carry are unique to it’s own and are each hallmarked. That means you will never find two people wearing the exact same piece of our jewellery. I did not come up with the idea of Hallmark Jewellery, but with the generations of jewelers in my family, I was inspired by them to reintroduce the brand as a brand that carries exceptional quality jewellery with prices that are 50% or more lower than most jewelers. Growing up, I hear a lot of friends telling me that they or their parents got a piece of jewellery for so and so price, and most of the time I would try to calculate the costs in my head and realize how much more they are paying than they should. So when it was my turn to take over the family business, I was motivated to create jewellery that still carry exceptional quality, but without the crazy markup in prices.

Could you walk us through the process of starting up Hallmark Jewellery?

Hallmark Jewellery originated from a family jewellery business that was based in Taiping, Perak and was ran by my grandmother. The family business moved to Kuala Lumpur in the early 1990s and opened up a retail store in City Square, now known as The Intermark, and in the early 2000s my father, Eddie Sin opened up another jewellery store in KL Plaza, now known as Fahrenheit 88, under the name Hallmark Jewellery focusing on exceptional quality imperial jadeite jewellery.

Did you encounter any particular difficulties during the early developments?

Definitely, I got into this industry at a really young age. In fact, I was still in my teen years when I started working in this industry (19). That being said, my age was a huge factor going into the industry because most people I dealt with were at least double or triple my age. I was always intimidated and afraid that I would say or do the wrong things. Due to the nature of the business, dealing with so much capital, it’s hard to have people trust you as it is, let alone someone who is only 19.

I managed to overcome it because this has always kept me on my toes and it motivated me to always expand my knowledge as much as I can. So until today, I would always pick up books and read articles about jewellery, keep myself updated on gold, diamond, precious stone prices, the eagerness to learn is very very important. Also, I think it is very important to always want to be able to explain to your customers in every detail on what they are spending their money on, and to do that right, it requires a lot of knowledge. My love for this industry has also helped me a lot along the way as interest and passion has played a big part in my journey in this industry thus far.

How have you been developing Hallmark Jewellery since startup?

I’ve introduced new and more modern designs to Hallmark Jewellery’s ready made jewellery collection and we have also hosted small social events for our customers. Hallmark Jewellery relies a lot on word of mouth and we have been planning a few charity events that are lined up for the near future. There are also big plans of Hallmark Jewellery tapping into the online industry in our few phases of development.

What kind of feedback did you get for Hallmark Jewellery so far?

Hallmark Jewellery has gotten some good and some bad feedbacks, and the most prominent bad feedback that we have is that because we rely so much on advertisement via word of mouth, most people that are not our regular customers would’ve never heard of us, despite the fact that we have been an active business for 3 generations now.

In terms of good feedback, we’ve always got customers who come back letting us know how happy they are with our services and the craftsmanship of our jewellery, and we definitely do pride ourselves on that. But since the reintroduction of Hallmark Jewellery, we have also been receiving feedback on how much our customers have saved in comparison to making a purchase on a similar product elsewhere.

Do you face a lot of competition in this industry especially from existing companies in the market?

We definitely do, naturally the general public and people who are not regular customers of ours will tend to trust the bigger jewellery companies out there, despite the fact that we all carry exceptional quality jewellery. Simply because they seem to be better-established companies with better marketing tools. As mentioned before, our strategy at Hallmark Jewellery is to focus on selling our jewellery at much cheaper prices while at same time making producing magnificent jewellery with exceptional craftsmanship as our number one priority.

Have you developed any industry insights that you could share?

The Malaysian jewellery industry is a very colorful and interesting industry and many jewelers carry very exquisite jewellery, enough for customers to spend days and months just to decide on making a purchase. But despite that, the Malaysian jewellery industry has also been a little behind in jewellery designs in comparison to the American and European jewellery industry. But with a little bit of help and education, I don’t think that it would take much to change that and keep up with the trend.

What is the future of the industry and how do you plan to stay relevant in this industry?

The future of the jewellery industry, just like the future of most industries, is to tap into the online market. With that being said, Hallmark Jewellery has got a team of people working on how we can expand our business into the online retail market. Because we focus mainly on a niche market and regular customers, jumping into the online retail industry will be something completely new for us, and we are very much excited for it.

What do you think about being an entrepreneur in Asia? Is it harder or easier, why?

I think that it is much easier being an entrepreneur in Asia, simply because there are just much more opportunities for entrepreneurs in Asia. There are more things that have not been brought into the Asian market yet, therefore much less competition for entrepreneurs who are launching startups and are just beginning to make a name for themselves. Take the jewellery industry for example, compared to the Western jewellery industry, the Asian industry still has so much to catch up on, thus providing Asian jewelers so much to learn from and much more opportunities to expand their current businesses with much less competition than the Western jewellery industry.

What is your definition of success?

I feel that success to me is being able to know that what you are doing has the capability to give you a comfortable, happy, and healthy lifestyle. While in some way help the people around you at the same time.

Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?

One of the reasons I wanted to become and entrepreneur is because I couldn’t stand the idea of working a 9-5 job and going over and the same routine again and again every single day. I’m not saying that what I do is better than a 9-5 job, but since a young age, I have always wanted to be different. The main reason I decided to be an entrepreneur is the fact that I have always wanted to make a mark, a difference. I want to build an empire based on my terms and my decisions.

In your opinion, what are the keys to entrepreneurial success?

Discipline. Honesty. Humility.

I always believe that one has to be disciplined enough to get things done when they’re supposed to be done and follow through on the things that you told yourself you would. Because as an entrepreneur, it is extremely easy to slack when the only person you have to answer to is yourself. You have to be your own drill sergeant and constantly push yourself to be better and always have the discipline to follow through.

Secondly, to be honest is very important. Be honest to your customers and be honest with yourself and the decisions that you make. I believe that honesty has the ability to shape a person’s reputation, and without a good reputation it would be hard for people to put their trust in you. And entrepreneurial success is much harder to achieve when you’re on your own.

Last but not least, the most important key to entrepreneurial success to me is humility. It is so important to be humble, because no matter how well you are doing, there is always someone doing better than you. No matter how much knowledge you have, there is always someone more experienced than you. There will always be someone who is one step ahead of you in something. The more humble you are, the more willing people will be to teach you something that you don’t already know. Without humility, one will not have the ability to learn from others.

Any parting words of wisdom for entrepreneurs out there from your personal experience?

Love what you do and be extremely passionate about what you do, but do not start something or go into something solely because you are passionate about it. People often aim to get into an industry that they are currently passionate about, but I think that it would be a mistake if that’s the only reason you have for going into a specific industry, simply because passion dies.

Most people are passionate about something because they have never made their passion their job, they developed their passion from their spare time but they have never needed for their passion to make money for them. Making a living requires you to work even when you don’t feel like it, which means working on your passion even when you are not in the mood to sometimes. I believe that doing that excessively will eventually kill the passion.

It’s good to have passion; I am in fact very passionate about my business. But to avoid killing the passion, you need to know what you are getting yourself into, study the industry, do your research, have a direction to work towards, and make sure that you have enough knowledge to keep that passion alive. Never jump into an industry or a business just because of the heat of the moment.

Connect

Hallmark Jewellery
www.hallmarkjewel.com
www.facebook.com/hallmarkjewel

www.instagram.com/hallmarkjewellery

 

William Sin

www.facebook.com/williamsin.wc

www.instagram.com/williamsin.wc

www.linkedin.com/in/williamsinwc

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