Known jewelry brand Qianye Jewelry (833585) is currently embroiled in turmoil, marked by its founder's disappearance and a halt in business operations. On September 14th, this publication, posing as a consumer, contacted several Qianye Jewelry stores in Beijing, all of which identified themselves as franchise locations. One store clerk indicated they would soon switch brands and cease representing Qianye Jewelry, while another noted that most of the popular designer pieces were out of stock, leaving only a limited selection available.
On September 10th, Northeast Securities, the lead sponsor for Qianye Jewelry, issued a risk warning announcement stating that they were unable to contact founders Lin Mingjie and Gao Xiaosong via WeChat, phone, email, or by visiting their office location. The following day, when this publication contacted the China Gem & Jade Jewelry Industry Association posing as a franchisee, the association's personnel responded that they too could not reach Lin Mingjie. Meanwhile, Qianye Jewelry's official stores on e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and Tmall have had all their products removed.
Founded in Beijing in 2001, Qianye Jewelry primarily deals in gold, diamonds, and inlaid ornaments, and was listed on the New Third Board in 2015. During its peak performance year in 2017, the company achieved annual revenue of 1.357 billion yuan and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 94.2796 million yuan. In those years, it operated over 200 direct-sale stores nationwide and once hired Hollywood star Anne Hathaway as a brand ambassador, achieving significant brand recognition. Two former employees close to the core management team revealed to this publication that internal salary arrears and delayed payments had already begun before the founder's disappearance was exposed. Qianye Jewelry's financial reports show its monetary funds dwindling from 104 million yuan in 2016 to just 933,700 yuan by the first half of 2026, while short-term borrowings have consistently exceeded 100 million yuan over the past four years.
The Turning Point
A review of Qianye Jewelry's historical financial reports by this publication reveals that 2017 was its performance peak, followed by fluctuating results. However, 2024 saw a resurgence in the company's scale, brand presence, and market reception, alongside a notable shift in its business structure. That year, the company reported revenue of 767 million yuan, a 13.22% year-on-year increase, and a net profit attributable to the parent of 25.09 million yuan, up 311.6%. Yet, more financial data exposed the operational problems confronting the company, which would later sow the seeds for the business suspension. In 2024, revenue from non-gold ornaments plummeted from 166 million yuan the previous year to 52.9662 million yuan, while gold ornament revenue increased from 493 million yuan to 703 million yuan. This reflects an industry-wide trend: declining consumer interest in diamonds and other non-gold ornaments.
For the early-stage Qianye Jewelry, gold and non-gold ornaments each accounted for roughly half of its revenue. Over time, however, gold ornaments' revenue contribution steadily increased, reaching 95.45% by 2025, with non-gold ornaments contributing only 19.801 million yuan, or 4.55% of total revenue. Qianye Jewelry's bet on gold ornaments was based on a low-price strategy. In 2024, its gross margin shrank dramatically from 22.55% the previous year to just 15.47%. In its 2024 annual report, the company noted that it had expanded online sales, and the proportion of low-margin gold products increased.
Wang Li, who worked at Qianye Jewelry for nearly a year and left in the first half of this year, revealed that in 2024, the company collaborated extensively with live-streaming influencers. A single partnership with a top streamer reportedly generated GMV in excess of 100 million yuan. Wang Li added that because the products were already priced low, combined with the various costs associated with influencer partnerships, an internal review ultimately found that this channel contributed virtually no profit. In 2024, Qianye Jewelry's net operating cash flow was -7.2226 million yuan. Management and sales expenses fell by 23.50% and 57.96% year-on-year, respectively, for a combined reduction of approximately 62.67 million yuan. This significant profit growth that year was largely driven by expense compression.
In 2025, Qianye Jewelry proactively suspended its influencer live-stream partnerships. In its August 2026 annual report inquiry response, the company explicitly cited the suspension of these partnerships as one of the reasons for its 2025 revenue decline. For 2025, Qianye Jewelry's full-year revenue was only 438 million yuan, a year-on-year drop of 42.95%. Wang Li explained that in August 2025, management suddenly announced price increases of 10% to 20%. At that time, the brand's retail price for gold jewelry was already above 1,000 yuan per gram, and this hike pushed individual product prices to a new level. According to Qianye Jewelry's financials, its gross margin was 16.54% in the first half of 2025, rising to 20.54% for the full year. While the price hike improved margins, it hurt sales volume. Wang Li noted that sales declined in September 2025 following the increase, coinciding with the approach of Singles' Day, which dampened employee morale, particularly in the e-commerce department, where execution teams questioned the decision and cooperation waned.
At this point, the external market also experienced severe volatility. In October 2025, after a continuous surge, gold prices suddenly reversed sharply downward. On October 21, 2025, international spot gold plunged more than 6% intraday, marking its biggest one-day drop since 2013, prompting a corresponding decline in branded gold jewelry prices per gram. This trend disrupted consumers' gold-purchasing plans. Those who were hesitant about "getting on board" during the uptrend turned to a wait-and-see approach when prices reversed, delivering another blow to Qianye Jewelry's sales.
The End of Self-Sustenance
The company's unstable performance manifested for employees in the form of delayed and unpaid wages. Wang Li was owed half a year's salary when he left, which remains unrecovered to this day. As early as October 2025, Wang Li's wages were not paid on time, with management attributing the delay to a problem with a bank loan. Xu Ming, who worked at Qianye Jewelry for six years and resigned in the first half of this year, left with nearly five months' wages outstanding. The HR department's response to the unpaid wages was that there were no funds and they were waiting for money to come in. Xu Ming noted that even before 2024, the company had experienced wage delays. Wang Li learned from other employees that a substantial bank loan was expected to arrive in August, but the bank's approval process failed, and the funds never came through.
Qianye Jewelry's financial data paints a clear picture of weakened self-sufficiency and a reliance on external support to survive. As of June 2026, the company's short-term borrowings stood at 133 million yuan, total assets at 1.589 billion yuan, and monetary funds at a mere 933,700 yuan. The largest asset on its books is inventory, amounting to 1.535 billion yuan, which represents a staggering 96.54% of total assets. Based on the disclosure standards in the 2024 annual report, over 80% of this inventory is gold, with the remainder comprising diamond and inlaid jewelry products. This inventory has an extremely low turnover rate, just 0.12 times in the first half of 2026 and 0.23 times for all of 2025, translating to a turnover period of approximately 1,500 days. In the view of the former employees, the high-margin business continued to contract, while gold ornaments offered limited profit room due to transparent pricing. Qianye Jewelry failed to find a new path forward amid this structural shift in its business.
The company did attempt to turn things around. Wang Li and Xu Ming, who worked in different departments, both told this publication that in the second half of 2025, Qianye Jewelry aggressively hired managers across various departments. The internal understanding was that this was meant to facilitate the company's transformation or, more precisely, to scale up further. Both also said they learned from many employees that the company had begun taking stock of its assets; in July and August, employees witnessed a batch of high-configuration office computers being collected. Wang Li gathered that Lin Mingjie had also sought out investors, hoping to offload a portion of his equity for relief funds, but ultimately failed. In response to inquiries about salary arrears and financing attempts sent via email and phone on September 14 and 15, this publication received no reply from Qianye Jewelry.