A petition titled ‘Justice For Our Ambassadors for JN ruining their reputations’ published on the activist website Change.org describes JN Jewelry as a multi-level-marketing (MLM) company that has “shut down with zero warning.”
According to the petition, which was created by a person identified as Mary Francese, “Over 70,000 Ambassadors [salespeople] were working for JN Jewelry.”
It adds, “No one saw this coming. We woke up to an image posted in a global group that states: ‘We’re sorry….! JN will from today all activities globally in Network Marketing. We will in the coming weeks fulfill our outstanding orders for customers, and payout earned commission for our ambassadors. We would like to thank you for the last years. Your JN Team.’”
MLM businesses, also known as ‘network marketing’ businesses, encourage existing members to promote and sell their offerings to other individuals and recruit them into becoming salespeople for the same MLM business.
Members are paid a percentage of the sales from people they have recruited. The new recruits become part of the member's network – ‘downline’ – and are, in turn, encouraged to make sales to earn money and recruit more people as members/salespeople.
Multi-level-marketing can be a legitimate business structure used by some direct-sales companies to sell products and services; however, the industry has been fraught with illegal operations that are run as pyramid schemes.
The Change.org page claims that more 4,500 orders were still awaiting shipment and that “thousands of ambassadors [members] haven’t even received July commissions, let alone August. Some have unspent credits they issued for their pay in their back office still.”
Nielsen’s jewellery history
Nielsen was previously a member of Pandora’s international management team and in a 2015 interview, told Jeweller he was largely responsible for building Pandora’s presence in a number of European countries. He resigned as CEO of its Central Western Europe subsidiary in 2011.
A non-compete clause prohibited him from trading in the jewellery industry for two years; he subsequently founded Endless Jewelry in 2013.
The brand launched internationally with 15 bracelets and 432 charms, with Nielsen saying at the time: “My charm inspiration comes mainly from Pandora and Story [by Kranz and Ziegler], and the bracelet inspiration comes from Ole Lynggaard.”
Nielsen claimed that Endless Jewelry achieved $US30 million ($AU38.5 million) in sales during its first full year of trading and, by the end of 2014, was stocked in 3,500 stores across 16 markets.
In January 2014 Nielsen self-published a book entitled Inside Pandora, which was promoted as: “A simple and unconventional approach to business by one of the key players behind the billion-dollar global enterprise."
Endless Jewelry stormed onto the Australian market in February 2015 when, along with its Australian-based distributors, Nielsen visited Australia and personally introduced the range at the Leading Edge Jewellers conference on the Gold Coast.
Following the conference, a series of invite-only roadshow events were held in five capital cities across the country as a way of demonstrating that the newcomer was serious about Australasian expansion.
In the same year, the brand managed to secure a three-year deal for Jennifer Lopez to be its 'face', and it was reported that the singer designed a line of bracelets and 42 charms.
Nielsen attributed much of the brand’s early success to experience drawn from working at Pandora; however, in 2016 Nielsen suddenly left Endless Jewelry less than three years after its global launch, confirming via Facebook that he had sold all his shares in the business.
Dream collapses
The company eventually collapsed in November 2016, but not before Nielsen announced plans for a new jewellery venture that would take inspiration from fast-fashion retailers.
In February 2016, only weeks after exiting his former startup, he revealed via Facebook that the new venture would be called Amazing Jewelry and invited “licence partners and franchise partners worldwide” to express their interest in what he described as a business that followed a similar model to fashion retail powerhouses H&M and Zara.
At the time of publication, Jeweller was unable to ascertain whether Amazing Jewelry still operates; however, a Shopify site exists online.
His personal website JesperNielsen.com was non-functioning at the time of publication, displaying the error message: ‘Sorry, we're doing some work on the site’.
It had previously stated, “Since 2003, Jesper Nielsen and the Nielsen family have been developing several very successful jewelry brands worldwide, opening shops in over 40 countries”.
A second Change.org petition was started by a person identified as Jaclyn Ross and ‘tagged’ Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia; meanwhile, a third petition started by a person identified as Angela Cassidy purports to outline some of the “amazing incentives” of the Jesper Nielsen Jewelry operation, including “holidays to his Mallorca ‘JN Mansion’, car bonus, cash payments for the “Super Recruiters”, the Top Seller, etc.”
Jeweller has attempted to contact Jesper Nielsen.
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| <2003 | | Jesper 'Kasi' Nielsen works as a manager of petrol stations and discount retailers in the suburbs of Copenhagen, Denmark. |
| 2003 | | Inspired by a friend, Nielsen starts selling Italian costume jewellery in Germany and forms the family company Kasi Group. |
| 2005 | | Nielsen negotiates the exclusive distribution rights to sell Pandora Jewelry in Germany, where he had an existing network of around 1,500 retailers. Kasi Group reaches a turnover of DKK20 million and profit of DKK1.3 million. |
| 2006 | | Nielsen persuades Pandora to allow him to open the first of what was to become a global network of Pandora stores. |
| 2007 |
| Kasi Group's turnover rises to DKK190 million with a profit of DKK17 million. |
| 2008 |
| Kasi Group's sales climb once again, reaching DKK500 million with a profit of DKK51 million. |
| | | The Danish private equity group Axcel buys a 60 per cent stake in Pandora from its founder Per Enevoldsen. |
| 2009 | | Kasi Group’s turnover reaches €100 million. |
| | | Nielsen sells Kasi Group’s distribution rights to Pandora for $81 million and a share of Pandora’s profits for the next five years. |
| 2010 | JAN | Pandora and Kasi Group merge to form Pandora Central Western Europe; Pandora is the majority owner with a 51 per cent stake. |
| | OCT | Pandora is listed on the Copenhagen stock exchange and immediately acquires the remaining 49 per cent of the shares from Kasi Group to make Pandora CWE a wholly-owned subsidiary; the deal includes a pre-payment of DKK385 million with the remainder to be paid in 2015 as a 'result-based earn-out'. |
| 2011 | JUL | Jesper Nielsen and his sister Annette Laustrup Nielsen resign from the board of directors of Pandora CWE; Annette also leaves her position as deputy managing director of Pandora CWE. Jesper had stepped down as president of Pandora CWE on 1 April. |
| 2013 | JUL | Jesper Nielsen launches new business Endless Jewelry. |
| 2014 | JAN | Nielsen self-publishes Inside Pandora, which is promoted as: “A simple and unconventional approach to business by one of the key players behind the billion-dollar global enterprise." |
| | NOV | Jennifer Lopez inks a three-year contract as the 'face' of Endless Jewelry, designing a range of new pieces. The business records turnover of $US30 million for the year, according to a Business Of Fashion report. |
| 2015 | FEB | Endless Jewelry launches in Australia and Nielsen says it has reached 3,300 stores in 17 markets in 19 months of operation; he tells Business Of Fashion the company palns to open a further 3,000 points of sale by the end of 2015, adding, "My vision in 20 years? I see 10,000 Endless stores worldwide. One day I’m going to hand it over to my son, and he’ll have to take over an empire.” That same month, Nielsen claims Pandora has not honoured its earn-out payment and that he is owed DKK753 million, according to a report in Scandinavian Retail and Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende. |
| | JUN | Nielsen steps down as Endless Jewelry CEO and later sells his shares in the company. |
| 2016 | FEB | Nielsen announces plans for Amazing Jewelry, inspired by fast-fashion retailers. |
| | APR | Amazing Jewelry officially debuts to UK retailers and press. |
| | JUN | The first Amazing Jewelry store opens in Denmark. |
| | NOV | Endless Jewelry files for bankruptcy in Germany. |
| 2019 | APR | Amazing Jewelry's store counts reaches more than 60 across Europe, the USA, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. |
| 2020 | JUL | Amazing Jewelry stores reportedly start to close. Around this time, Jesper Nielsen launches multi-level-marketing jewellery business JN Jewelry, with 'ambassadors' (members) in the UK and Germany. |
| 2021 | MAR | JN Jewelry expands to Australia. |
| | SEP | JN Jewelry 'ambassadors' are shocked to receive an abrupt message that the business is closing; some claim to be owed thousands in unpaid commissions, and several start online petitions to hold the company to account, including in Australia. |
WATCH VIDEOS
A promotional corporate video for Jesper Nielsen's jewellery uploaded in February 2021.
A live interview with Jesper Nielsen as recent as August 2021.
More reading:
‘Business as usual’ after Endless Jewelry collapse
Endless Jewelry reshuffle continues
Nielsen ditches Endless Jewelry for new concept
Sudden exit for Endless Jewelry founder
Endless Jewelry supply to benefit from new recruit
Endless Jewelry nabs Pandora, Julie Sandlau exec
Endless jewellery appoints new leadership
Endless demand for new Danish jewellery brand
Ambitious jewellery brand marches Down Under