From May 2018, Primo Japan Inc. will begin taking steps towards “gender-free” product labeling for both of our wedding ring brands by changing formats that distinguish products based on gender to “gender-free” formats.

 

As Japan’s largest bridal jewelry specialty store, with 87 stores operating in 44 prefectures and major metropolitan areas throughout the country, Primo Japan has served approximately 60,000 couples for their bridal jewelry purchases. Until now, we have designated our wedding rings based on gender through the abbreviations “M” and “L” for “Men’s” and “Ladies’” rings respectively. These product labeling guidelines were based on the assumption that wedding rings are purchased as “a set for a man and a woman together”. However, in early 2018, during a free exchange of individual thoughts and opinions among our retail store sales staff as part of our company’s “PRIMO RING PROJECT” CSR initiative, participants raised the issue of more “gender-free” labels as a way of reflecting the recent spread of increasingly diverse values and assumptions about what is “for men” and what is “for women”. Based on the ethos of “together with our customers,” which is one of the PRIMO RING PROJECT’s fundamental principles, we have realized this project member-driven initiative through the cooperation of each department within the company.

 

With this new policy taking effect as of May 2018, gender-based product specifications have been deleted from our Japanese website.* In addition, customer order forms for wedding rings, which previously included fields specifying men’s and women’s rings, have been changed to a form that does not specify gender. Beginning with this initiative, we will continue to support gender-free measures throughout the entire company and promote company-wide awareness-raising activities through the PRIMO RING PROJECT going forward.

 

These gender-free measures have come about as a result of key elements of our business model, namely our “select order” system that allows customers to select from more than 100 designs as they create their own made-to-order rings, and our “personalized support” approach to customer service through which our staff provide consultations in private consultation areas and suggest styles based on each customer’s individual point of view. Based on our company philosophy of “making PRIMO (the best) dreams into PRIMO (supreme) happiness”, we will continue to help each of our customers turn their dreams into the shape of a ring, now and in the future.

 

*For our overseas businesses and online stores, we will take customer convenience and market conditions into consideration in determining appropriate measures for the future.