Bowjangles AUthentic Jewellery Shop in Wednesbury, has just had a major refurbishment. The shop is well established now and has people travelling miles even from over seas to visit it. The reason behind it is the amazing price it gives on people trading in there gold, the items of Jewellery, some made especially for them. Aaron the man behind it has been in the industry all his life and his knowledge on it is part of the reason for the shops success. You can even get currency here while your in too. We have a chat with Aaron to find out all about it.
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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.