New Zealand-born jeweller Michael Hill is preparing to launch a new app dedicated to its repair service, part of a three-phase circularity strategy.
The retailer confirmed the release in its latest annual report, noting that the end goal is to establish a “seamless repair business to drive incremental revenue.”
Michael Hill repaired over 401,641 pieces of its customers’ jewellery across FY23.
“We take pride in the quality product we sell, as well as the relationship we have with our customers, however over time jewellery wear and tear is inevitable,” the company reported.
“We provide a quality jewellery repair offering in store for all Michael Hill product, and in New Zealand we offer repairs on any jewellery products, working with global partners to repair and restore even the most precious jewellery back to life.”
The new app will add to Michael Hill’s ‘Re:new’ circularity strategy.
Earlier this year, the jeweller launched its first phase Re:cycle - a digitally enabled gold recycling program where customers can exchange unwanted jewellery for a Michael Hill gift card.
Michael Hill will soon launch its second iteration 'Re:store', which will focus on jewellery repairs, followed by a third rollout 'Re:imagine', a diamond upgrade program.
Between April and July this year, the Re:cycle program recycled 1,192 grams of pure gold and received 2734.18 grams of gold alloy. Michael Hill claimed this had avoided 3,575 tonnes of mining ore and 19,068 kilograms of carbon emissions.
Head of sustainability Kerrie Hockless confirmed this amounted to over $200,000 worth of gold at Ragtrader Live in Melbourne this year.
“We know through research that for every one gram of pure gold we can push back into recycling engineered products saves around three tonnes of mining ore and 16 kilos of carbon emissions,” Hockless said. “So every customer that sends their product in of pure gold, we thank them for helping us hit that amount.”
Hockless said Michael Hill will soon scale the program into its other key markets, New Zealand and Canada.