Gold prices fall, some wait and see while others take action; wedding-related gold orders heat up amid price drop

Entering June, the gold market has experienced significant volatility. The domestic spot gold price has continued to decline from above 980 yuan per gram at the beginning of June, with many branded pure gold retail prices falling in tandem. On weekday mornings, the Shuibei Gold Market in Shenzhen, Guangdong, still sees a steady stream of visitors. Faced with the ongoing fluctuations in gold prices, many consumers have adopted a more conservative mindset. Most people generally follow a "buy when prices rise, not when they fall" mentality, hoping to wait for a further pullback before making a purchase. Although overall retail sales have cooled, the price decline from high levels has successfully stimulated some essential demand. It is understood that June is typically the off-season for gold jewelry sales in previous years, but at present, wedding-related orders are seeing a clear rebound, driving some merchants’ overall sales up year-on-year. In addition, large orders in the Shuibei market have increased significantly recently. Whether it is investment gold bars or consumers making one-off wedding purchases worth hundreds of thousands of yuan, both have increased compared with the same period in previous years. In stark contrast to the cautious wait-and-see attitude in the terminal gold retail market, the upstream wholesale side has actively restocked in response to the price pullback. According to business leaders, during the previous period of continuous gold price increases, companies had been strictly controlling their inventories and did not dare to purchase rashly. Recently, as gold prices have retreated, companies have accelerated their restocking pace.