In the run up to the Christmas sales push it’s been great to look back on the last year and realise how far we’ve come and what is in store for the future.

Our UK headquarters have been based in Fazeley Studios in Digbeth, Birmingham, for over a year now and everyone is thoroughly enjoying our new studios and the working environment. It’s great to be positioned in such a creative hub in the city.

Our business has been growing steadily and passing 40,000 likes on Facebook was a great indicator of this for us – our online customer base is crucial so we never underestimate the importance of social media. Part of this is understanding what works and what doesn’t for this audience, and we run exclusive competitions and giveaways which generate a huge amount of interaction.

This time of year, presents its own unique challenges in the jewellery business – particularly to our team of “Gemstone Hunters” who travel all year round sourcing our gemstones. In countries like Russia, certain gemstones that we sell cannot be mined due to the extreme winter climate, which adds to the exclusivity of, and demand for, gems such as Siberian Amethyst.

Our Black Friday weekend deals are the big focus now – for this, we’ve spent weeks planning special stock and coming up with ideas to give our customers the best possible deal.

Online and TV will have two separate exciting promotions recognising the different markets they serve. Our online store will be doing 20 per cent off all stock online from Black Friday up until Cyber Monday and we are anticipating a record-breaking weekend. For TV, there will be some incredible deals for the weekend (and for those looking for a pre-Christmas sales bargain, we’d love to see you on 672 Sky and 40 Freeview to see our astonishing collection for Black Friday).

Innovation and meeting customer requirements are critical so we continually look at what we are doing and how we can meet demand. So, we recently changed our outlet hours for TV which now runs from 8am-1pm, and it will be interesting to see what effect this has on our Black Friday sales overall.

Far from having a rest and recharge prior to the festive season, next up for the Rocks’ team is the big Christmas sales push – our most important time of the year from a sales perspective.

And now is the time for us to be doing our detailed planning for summer 2017. Our team is currently scouring the world ready to bring our Rocks&Co customers the finest and best quality gemstones for next year, we are always at least 9 months ahead in terms of planning. The world of retail – especially online and TV – does not take a break over the festive period as Christmas sales are so important. Our sights are exceeding our targets in 2017.